Unemployment

by Larry Levin

The monthly jobs data were released Friday and it wasn't very pretty. However, in order to justify the current up-trend, Wall Street said "it could have been worse." Although the market didn't make dramatic new highs, it managed to slowly trend up on pretty good volume.

The BLS report said: Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector industries. Overall, private sector employment fell by 611,000.


Some of the highlights include the following bullets; however, some categories overlap and will not sum to -539,000.


539,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 663,000 jobs last month.

110,000 construction jobs were lost vs. 126,000 last month.

149,000 manufacturing jobs were lost vs. 161,000 last month.

269,000 service providing jobs were lost vs. 358,000 last month.

47,000 retail trade jobs were lost vs. 48,000 last month.

122,000 professional and business services jobs were lost vs. 133,000 last month.

15,000 education and health services jobs were added vs. 8,000 added last month.

44,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were lost vs. 40,000 last month.

72,000 government jobs were added vs. 5,000 lost.


If it weren't for the government adding jobs like census workers, the report would have been a disaster. But wasn't it? The BLS revised the prior two month's data to show higher unemployment levels of 30,000 (February) and 36,000 (March), which almost negates the government's 72,000 April addition. Moreover, the unemployment rate almost reached 9% as I recently predicted. Additionally, the government's own U-6 level of unemployment that includes "marginally attached" workers has now reached 15.8%.



Previous Day's Trading Room Results:

Trade Date: 5/8/09

E-Mini S&P Trades*
(before fees and commissions):

1) OTF sell @ 10:00am at 914.00 = b/e (1 lot)

2) 80% sell @ 10:20am at 916.50 = +1.50 (1 lot)

3) Engf sell @ 10:30am at 915.00 = +1.50 (1 lot)

4) Engf sell @ 11:50am at 919.50 = -1.25 (1 lot)

5) Engf buy @ 1:40pm at 923.75 = +2.00 & +1.00 (2 lot)

6) Algorithm positions (3)...combined Secret's and Algo total...+3.50


Electronic (YM) Mini-Dow:

1) None today



Sign up as an AvidTrader Member to receive "The Technician" Value Area's each day. The market then has an 80% chance of filling the Value Area. Many traders familiar with the Value Area and the techniques that go along with it use it to help them decide what trades to do each day. Join and see how this technique can help you trade more successfully!