Employment?

by Larry Levin

Friday's employment data was supposed to be "the one:" the report that proved there was actual employment occurring rather than unemployment. The market has been rallying in anticipation of this. It needed this - or so we thought. The "employment" data was awful - far worse than expected - yet the market managed another slow low-volume rally to new highs.

From the BLS:

Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-85,000) in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

Although the lame stream media tried to make a big deal of last month's revision from -11,000 to +4,000 rarely was it mentioned that this so-called improvement was netted to NO GAIN with October's revision from -111,000 to -127,000. The lame stream media also failed to mention that among the unemployed, the number of long-term unemployed continued to trend up reaching 6.1 million, the civilian labor force participation rate fell to 64.6%, and that the employment-population ratio declined to 58.2 percent!

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in December, an increase of 578,000 from a year earlier. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Are these folks WORKING? No, they are UNEMPLOYED by every definition known to man but one - the US governments. Why is it like this - counted this way? Because it is politically expedient; truth be damned.

However, that's not all who are left off of the official (read: bulls#it) data point; there are a few more categories of ignored unemployed Americans. When you count them all - and the government does this but keeps it off of the "official" list - the real unemployment number from the government itself rose to -17.3%.

With this in mind - the market rallied to new highs.



Previous Day's Trading Room Results:

Trade Date: 1/8/10

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


1) No "Secrets" trades today.

2) Algorithm positions (4)

3) "Reading the Tape" positions (0) ...combined Secret's, Algo, & "Reading the Tape" total...-0.25



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!