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The Return of The Perfect Payrolls

By |2018-03-09T12:23:24-05:00March 9th, 2018|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Over the past two days, Chinese exports exploded, US payrolls bested 300k, and China’s CPI recorded the hottest inflation in 5 years. Globally synchronized growth? It’s times like these where remembering how nothing goes in a straight line helps settle and ground interpretations. In thinking that way already, you are never surprised when there are good even perfect data reports [...]

The Payroll Report To Focus On Is August’s, Not September’s

By |2017-10-06T13:23:00-04:00October 6th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The hurricanes didn’t disappoint, causing major damage at least to the BLS. Precisely how much the statistics were affected by the disruptions in Texas and Florida really can’t be calculated, not that everyone won’t try. It makes this month’s payroll report a Rorschach test of sorts. You can pretty much make it out to be whatever you want. In the [...]

Payrolls Still Slowing Into A Third Year

By |2017-03-10T11:51:33-05:00March 10th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Today’s bland payroll report did little to suggest much of anything. All the various details were left pretty much where they were last month, and all the prior trends still standing. The headline Establishment Survey figure of 235k managed to bring the 6-month average up to 194k, almost exactly where it was in December but quite a bit less than [...]

Chart of The Week; They Really Don’t Know What They Are Doing Version

By |2016-08-05T18:43:52-04:00August 5th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Given it is payroll Friday, it has to be a chart related to the futility of focusing on the headline number. There is any number of ways with which to accomplish this, but it serves well to highlight the relationship already presented in my view of this specific view of the payroll report. Economists often claim that the participation problem [...]

Payrolls: Trying To Find Meaning In The Meaningless

By |2016-08-05T12:23:52-04:00August 5th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The BLS released yet another perfect payroll report for July. It hit on all the major themes, putting further distance to the shocking May number. All the right people have been reassured by all the right parts. U.S. employment rose at a solid clip in July and wages rebounded after a surprise stall in the prior month, signs of an [...]

Perfect Payrolls Again; Unremarkable And Irrelevant

By |2016-01-08T13:24:14-05:00January 8th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

I think it entirely fitting, even useful in the long run, that December’s payroll report was yet another perfect month; the fourth of 2015 by my unofficial count. There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the components, at least in the raw job count estimated by various statistical regressions and adjusted with imputations (wages, not so much). The problem [...]

Only Two Points Left Meaningful in Payrolls; Both Look Downward

By |2015-09-04T13:10:26-04:00September 4th, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There are only two numbers in the monthly payroll report that have any meaning, and both came up quite short yet again. The first, as always, is the labor force itself as that population estimate more than any other indicates the relative station of the US economy. There has never been any time in recorded economic history where economic growth [...]

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