Who is right and who is wrong? ADP showed a very soft employment picture yesterday while today the bureau of labor statistics shows a firm amount of hiring – in particular in state and local governments. Seems like the economy is holding up.
We saw a little pop higher in interest rates as the employment numbers were released–now at 4.33%. Also this would seem to call into question any thoughts of a Fed rate cut in July–honestly I was thinking if we had a very soft number for June July would be on the table–but not. There is very dramatic amounts of political pressure on Powell to get a rate cut done–but that alone won’t work to lower rates—we need data.
Of course, equities are higher today–all news is good news. The S&P500 is darned near up .8%—for us old timers, it is hard to accept that stock markets only move in 1 direction, although I suppose there will be a day of reckoning.
Today stock markets close at noon (central time) and of course tomorrow markets are all closed. Hopefully I get a chance to make some buy decisions for next week–I have the cash. I did deploy some cash back into CDs this morning, but I have to direct most of the balance into short duration term preferreds or baby bonds to keep the higher income flowing.
Looking at the BLS, do you really believe employment in the government sector increased significantly Government jobs +79K, Healthcare jobs +59K. Government jobs have been axed due to DOGE? This is when teachers are not working…? Smells beyond fishy? If these reports continue positive then we have all been had!
I did not trust government statistics during the Biden era, and I definitely don’t trust them now that Trump has DOGED the statisticians and lifted from the Biden bag of tricks.
Unemployment hasn’t been trustworthy since 2019, and it isn’t entirely based on who the President is.
The BLS models aren’t working as accurately as they should be because of massive changes in the workforce that the models can’t catch up to.
But a disconnect between ADP and BLS isn’t anything new and happens occasionally, for one thing, because ADP oversamples large employers.
Stock markets only move up these days because government spending only goes up and right along with it the supply of money. The reckoning you speak of may well be an inflationary collapse as opposed to the deflationary recessions of yesteryear.
I agree Dan. The govt isn’t exactly instilling monetary confidence
And hasn’t been for 24+ years at least.