The “will they,won’t they” story in terms of whether the US Federal Reserve Board will increase interest rates this summer has taken another twist.

Weak US employment figures for May – when the net rise in employment was 38,000, compared to expectations of a 160,000 rise – appear to have taken the possibility of an increase this month off the table.

And the figures were so weak that the Fed may even find it hard to justify a move in July.

The monthly net increase is the difference between two very large numbers – job gains and job losses in the world’s biggest economy.

But while this can sometimes throw up strange results, and there were also once-off factors during the month, revisions downwards to estimates for the previous two months reinforced the message that the US economy may not be quite as healthy as had been thought.

Janet Yellen and her other Fed board members had spent most of the last few months trying to soften the markets up for a likely summer interest rate increase.

Now she must lead her troops at least some way back down the hill. All eyes will now be on a speech she makes on Monday in Philadelphia, the last one before the news blackout ahead of the June 15 meetings.

She will have to hint that interest rates are still likely to edge up in the coming months, but lower expectations about an early move.

It is a measure of the odd times we live in that there should be such angst about raising rates from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent, in what would be only the second tiny upward move after rates were cut to just about zero during the crisis.For the stock market it is all a bit of a conundrum.

The glass half full brigade will rejoice at the continuation of low interest rates.

But high market valuations need a growing economy to underpin them and more weak data could yet see a return to the nervous days seen in January and February.