About 50% of today’s rally came in the Globex session. Once the market opened it ground higher on relatively low volume. The morning’s weekly jobless claims were better than expected, as well as the ISM-Services data.
However, most of the day’s chatter revolved around how high Friday’s NFP number will be. Most traders are expecting a 250k print, while some are estimating as high as 300,000 new jobs were created last month – a “whisper” number if you like. The official consensus number is that the economy produced 180,000 jobs. When released before the open, one should expect fireworks.
I have written often how the government has changed the way it collects GDP, employment, and inflation data to name a few. For example, the government simply stops counting those who run out of unemployment insurance, thus the recent slide of the unemployment rate from 9.8% to 9.0% while virtually no new jobs had been created.
Another favorite of the government is to use seasonally adjusted data to get the number it wants. Others keep unadjusted data which is quite interesting and is much closer to the truth.
Gallup is just such a firm that does real-time polling and doesn't come to the same conclusion as the government: “Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.” … “Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%)”
However, most of the day’s chatter revolved around how high Friday’s NFP number will be. Most traders are expecting a 250k print, while some are estimating as high as 300,000 new jobs were created last month – a “whisper” number if you like. The official consensus number is that the economy produced 180,000 jobs. When released before the open, one should expect fireworks.
I have written often how the government has changed the way it collects GDP, employment, and inflation data to name a few. For example, the government simply stops counting those who run out of unemployment insurance, thus the recent slide of the unemployment rate from 9.8% to 9.0% while virtually no new jobs had been created.
Another favorite of the government is to use seasonally adjusted data to get the number it wants. Others keep unadjusted data which is quite interesting and is much closer to the truth.
Gallup is just such a firm that does real-time polling and doesn't come to the same conclusion as the government: “Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.” … “Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%)”
Trade Date: 3/3/11
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