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From JOLTS Series Shift To Series of Rate Cuts

By |2019-10-09T12:29:58-04:00October 9th, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

I’ve said all along that they would be dragged into them kicking and screaming. After all, the Federal Reserve undertook its last rate hike in December 2018 – just as the markets were making clear he was completely mistaken in his view of the economy. What followed was the ridiculous “Fed pause” which pretty much everyone outside of the central [...]

Labor Data Dependent

By |2019-09-10T17:24:26-04:00September 10th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Right now, everything comes down to the labor market. Does the US economy hang on despite stubborn and evidently non-transitory overseas turmoil cross currents? Or do American consumers rightly confident of the economic situation re-assert themselves via their wallets and deliriously spend the economy back on track? You better believe Fed Chairman Jay Powell will be watching the data very [...]

Weakening Labor Market Now In All The Data

By |2019-08-06T12:24:20-04:00August 6th, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The JOLTS series had always been a seemingly superfluous set of labor numbers for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The agency wanted to go deeper into employment when it originally presented these other series in 2002. The unemployment rate seemed accurate enough, but it came at the labor market solely from the view of labor supply. As the BLS [...]

The Unemployment Rate Has Been Left Even Lonelier

By |2019-06-10T17:59:23-04:00June 10th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The unemployment rate has been maybe the loneliest of numbers. That didn’t quite mean it was entirely alone. Of the major economic accounts, only the JOLTS series and only one part of that series suggested the big mainstream employment indicator was anywhere close to accurate. Job Openings (JO) have been surging as if companies are in high demand for new [...]

Labor Slowdown Already; Another Account Falls In Line of May 29

By |2019-04-11T16:41:00-04:00April 11th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

May 29. May 29. May 29. It keeps showing up everywhere. Not only does it appear as an inflection on so many important market charts, we keep finding it in economic accounts, too. There is so much to corroborate what can only have been a real and striking event. This contrasts, of course, with the mainstream narrative. Last year the [...]

No Surprise, Hysteria Wasn’t a Sound Basis For Interpretation

By |2019-02-27T17:11:06-05:00February 27th, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

What gets them into trouble is how they just can’t help themselves. Go back one year, to early 2018. Last February it was all-but-assured (in mainstream coverage) that the US economy was going to take off. The bond market, meaning UST’s, was about to be massacred because the overheating boom would force a double shot down its throat. Not only [...]

US Labor Demand Soars, Or Sours

By |2019-02-12T12:19:49-05:00February 12th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

JOLTS is at it again. The most-watched piece, Job Openings, has been surging. Ostensibly an attempt to measure the demand for labor in the private economy, the BLS figures that US businesses are in the market for whole lot of new workers. Given rising worries throughout the uncertainty of 2018, JOLTS JO has been used as a steady counterpoint. This [...]

Another ‘Highest In Ten Years’

By |2018-10-31T15:36:17-04:00October 31st, 2018|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Upon the precipice of the Great “Recession”, US workers were cushioned to some extent by what economists call sticky wages. Before the Great Depression, as well as during it, companies would attempt to deal with looming economic contraction by cutting pay rates before workers. Nowadays, the intent is reversed; businesses will try to keep core workers by keeping pay rates [...]

Bond JOLTS Without Wages To Back Just JO

By |2018-09-11T17:46:59-04:00September 11th, 2018|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

In the absence of a booming economy, one has been conjured from a select few employment statistics. The catalog, beginning in 2014, consisted of a rapidly falling unemployment rate, the Establishment Survey which dazzled with headline payroll growth supposedly adding up to the “best jobs market in decades”, and the JOLTS series but curiously omitting everything but the Job Openings [...]

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