Happy National Cheese Pizza Day! Fitting that it’s falling on a Friday, no? To help determine your pie of your choice, why not tap Dave Portnoy’s “One Bite Pizza Reviews.” Native of Salem, Massachusetts and founder of sports and pop culture company Barstool Sports, Portnoy began his pizza ratings on a mission to review every pizza joint in Manhattan in 2017. His no-nonsense approach and candid scoring system, ranging from 0 to 10, went viral and birthed his now-famous catchphrase, “One bite, everybody knows the rules.” A high score from Portnoy is the boost every pizzeria craves. As for that enviable perfect score, he rarely awards a score above a 9, making his highest-rated pizzas truly exceptional. The notable exception and sole 10/10 rating went to Monty’s in Lynn, Massachusetts. Delucia's in Raritan, New Jersey earned an impressive 9.4, with Portnoy praising its brick oven and crispiness. As for the actual island of Manhattan, try John’s on Bleecker Street, which Portnoy praised as a true classic, garnering a stout 9.3.
For U.S. macro bulls, today’s 75,000 consensus estimate for nonfarm payrolls (NFP) is nowhere near a high score. Even Bloomberg’s 85,000 is no slice of heaven. These market expectations roughly quantify “breakeven employment growth,” the conceptual measure to determine how many jobs the U.S. economy needs to create monthly to keep the unemployment rate stable. While a moving target – it’s been trimmed from north of 100,000 due to revised projections for immigration -- August’s anticipated results can be viewed as ‘benign’ should they prove accurate.