Jobs: Sell Rumor, Buy the News?

Before we get into the Department of Labor jobs report, just out, a look at the macro picture is in order.

First, consider the Challenger Jobs Cut report out Thursday (graphic right) and ask yourself “What is so bad about this?”

Look, as I have been telling Peoplenomics™ subscribers for a long time:  There is a chance that the normal “Sell in May” won’t happen this year (it didn’t, by the way) and we could see an increase in markets in the summer rally to come.

So one economic data point was the job creation report (ADP) up around what was it, +205,000, or so?  And the Challenger number was down a lot compared to previous months.

And the Fed is unlikely to raise rates until next year?

Gimme a break:  Those Harbingers of Doom who cite manufacturing data are being a little insincere, I think, as well.  Production may be down, but it never seems to occur to these geniuses that inventories had been building. 

In real business, when inventory build is sitting in a warehouse, somewhere, it represents money at rest that’s not producing something of value to a company.  Hard to sell “availability.”  So orders come down.

So now we’ve worked around to the main economic issue – for people who own stocks:  Is there a reason to believe that this is a sell the rumor, buy the news kind of set-up?  Designed – with yesterday’s decline) to smoke out as many bears as possible and then have them for lunch today?

Hand me the envelope, now, please?

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Mining employment continued to decline. Household Survey Data In May, both the unemployment rate (5.5 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (8.7 million) were essentially unchanged. Both measures have shown little movement since February. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (5.0 percent), adult women (5.0 percent), teenagers (17.9 percent), whites (4.7 percent), blacks (10.2 percent), Asians (4.1 percent), and Hispanics (6.7 percent) showed little or no change in May. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of unemployed new entrants edged up by 103,000 in May but is about unchanged over the year. Unemployed new entrants are those who never previously worked. (See table A-11.)

The number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks decreased by 311,000 to 2.4 million in May, following an increase in April. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) held at 2.5 million in May and accounted for 28.6 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 849,000.

Our dime-store analysis follows:

1.  The Labor Participation Rate bumped from 62.8% up to 62.9%.

2.  The absolute number of people working went up 272,000.

3.  Unfortunately, 213,000 of these jobs were estimated into existence by the Birth Death Model, which saw an increase of 40,000 jobs in construction, though that is believable.

market reaction?  Dow down 72…but let’s see how it’s spun by the end of trading today.  It might be commercials getting ready to go long…slaughter a few bears for breakfast, first.

Perry’s Electronica Nightmare…

It was nice to see Rick Perry toss his hat back into the ring for the WH in 2016.  His retooled populist message was almost like a read of UrbanSurvival:  Strong on border defense, strong on defense, and against government telling you too much about how to run your life.

Here’s the problem of Perry in a nutshell:  He’s got a problem with New Media and it is going to hurt him.

First, when Faux Snooze was running the subtitled commentary (I was eating Chinese food at the time) one of the commentators must have mumbled because as soon as Perry’s face was off the tube, the text reading something like…

Whether voters will follow

Pick reh reh latest….

Then he’s got a website problem with his Google return:

And then when you go to that website, there’s no text of his speech on page 1, no press link on his newsroom page to the text of his announcement.  

And then there was the NY Times coverage.  No major synopsis of the announcement bullet points, no link to the full text, and a rehash of Perry’s use of office to try and get a prosecutor who he believed was acting out of line, to step down.  All fine grist for the liberal Northeast.

No link to the Perry website, that I could see, either.

Perry, unlike the speechmaking crowd in the District of Corruption, actually has some large administrative experience between neighborhood organizing and getting amnesia when Congress wants to know something.

That message has been electronically garbled to the point of unintelligible.  And I will leave it to you to discern whether that’s by design, accident, or lack of skill and an electronic media czar.

As in most other campaigns, too many consultants spoil the message.

U.S. Gov Hack

When in doubt, blame the Chinese for the hack of current and former federal employees.

Lacking my usual medications this morning, however, let me offer you a different idea – quite conspiratorial in nature…but it would make sense…

Name one large Federal operation that has tons of computing horsepower that just lost significant funding , what, five days ago?

What if the masters of spoofing just did a major F/U to the civilian government from the shadow government?

I mean tactically it would be brilliant.  Obvious and deniable.

The kind of stuff we like to ponder when proof of who did it is not clear.  And an IP address is anything but proof.    Proxy me that.

Frack and Crack

With the EPA issuing a landmark report saying there is no long term risk to water supplies from fracking operations, we are reminded of early government reports on smoking.

Like cancer, you idiots, the disease doesn’t show up until people start dying.

How freaking dumb are “scientists” and what are the assumptions for groundwater speeds?  Fracking very very likely causes quakes and fracking pollution is not a series of fixed point problems.  FMTT. 

This will go like the war with Mexico…denied for decades before we see an injection from the honesty well.

We’re still waiting on both fronts.

Speaking of the War with Mexico

We don’t hear about the executions going on behind the border in enemy (cartel_) territory, much.  But try this one after you finish your Wheaties.

And now, with the cartels just declaring war on those running for office in Mexico, we can thank the lady dem running for the WH and the so-far would be border-opener for this nasty brew that is washing on both sides of the border.

The good news is that quality pot being grown in the US is taking some of the green off the table for the cartels.

Which leads to the no-brainer forecast of drug cartel money being funneled into anti pot politicians in the US  – because that would keep prices up in the US and a drug war?  All the better.

So let me ask our Arkansas readers about drug planes and such there years back?  Oh this is such a tangled topic…