With the Labor Department reporting unemployment and payrolls for July, the report on personal income and spending for June may seem like a bit of an afterthought. Fortunately, this report also may cool some of those wage inflation fears that had been seen on Thursday from the Employment Cost Index for the second quarter. That report fueled fears that wage inflation was finally returning.

Friday’s report showed that personal income rose by 0.4% in June, right in line with the 0.4% expected by Bloomberg. Consumer spending in June was also up by 0.4%, and right in line with the 0.4% expected.

Another fortunate reading was that the PCE Index was up by 0.2%, right where Bloomberg had the consensus estimate. And the Core PCE Index was up by only 0.1% — also as expected.

Personal income rose 0.4% in May, after having risen by 0.3% in April. Again, nothing seems out of line here.

There is nothing earth-shattering here that should spook the markets by any unexpected amount. This won’t send any investors into panic or euphoria.

After dropping 317 points on Thursday, and after having been down almost another 100 points in futures earlier on Friday, the DJIA futures were down only about 15 points about 20 minutes ahead of the 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time opening bell. Nasdaq futures even briefly went positive.

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