How to Read the Blueberry Jobs Report
Although all blue berrys are blue, not all blue berrys are blueberries. – Alex Reiger from Taxi
The Jobs Report was “better than expected”. Not that anybody expected much, as the country added jobs last month equal to 0.05% of the country’s population instead of having added “only” 0.03%, which is what a bunch of idiot economists who were polled by a bunch of silly financial reporters had expected.
I had written this in this week’s chat: “I think we’ll see unemployment “surprisingly” drop closer to 7% in the next year or two and then it’ll rise back to 10% and higher in coming years from there …” 7% is still a long ways away and they will play with the numbers to get us there if they have to, I’d expect.
The markets are up 2-3% across the board.
I hate to be so cynical, but I’ve been around the block a few times and I’ve seen the underbelly of the Republican/Democrat/Fed and how it operates, and I can tell you that it’s not very hard for them to make a few “birth/death” or other completely subjective adjustments to the numbers to make them look better as we head into the election. The banks manipulate the LIBOR data they report, the government manipulates its economic data it reports.
We’ve had a pretty crazy week in this pretty crazy earnings season, with many stocks including DDD, AMZN, BIDU and even AAPL up at higher levels than they were pre-earnings. FB of course being the ugly stepchild exception.
No trades for me today. Patience is one of the most under-rated attributes of great traders.
