December 6, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday morning, December 6. In addition, revisions added 56,000 jobs to the totals for October and September. Which adds up to a strong recovery from the shocking low 12,000 new jobs initially reported for October. Initial analysis that the almost non-existant growth for October was due to hurricanes and strikes now looks correct. At the same time, the unemployment rate, which is calculated in a survey separate from that which produces the jobs total, ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. The jobs total and the unemployment rate were broadly expected by economists. The complete picture is of an economy showing a continued modest expansion. In my opinion, that’s enough to lead to a 25 basis point cut at its December 18 meeting in the Federal Reserve’s benchmark short-term interest rate from the current range of 4.50% to 4.75%. The CME FedWatch took today put the odds od a 25 basis point cut at the December meeting at 85.1%. That’s up from 66% odds a week ago
November 29, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
At 8:30 a.m. on Friday, December 6, investors will see the U.S. jobs report for November. Economists expect that the economy added 200,000 jobs in the month and that for the unemployment rate will hold steady at 4.2%.
November 1, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added 12,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate, which uses a different survey method, held steady at 4.1%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the August and September reports to take a total of 112,000 jobs off earlier estimates. The average job growth over the past three months is now 104,000, down from 189,000 over the six months before that. The revised data and the October estimate are both more in line, in my opinion, with what is likely to have been happening in the economy as the result of high interest rates from the Federal Reserve. I thought hugh interest rates should have been slowing the economy more than the initial data suggested. And now it it looks like those high rates were working much more in line with past history of the economy. Of course, the big question today is should we believe the October report
December 8, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added 199,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reported today, Friday, November 8. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.7% from 3.9% in October That surprised economists who had expected the unemployment rate to hold steady. The bond market reacted in the morning hours after the report was released at 8:30 a.m. New York time by selling Treasuries. The yield on the 10-year Treasury gained 8 basis points to 4.233% as of 10 a.m. in New York as bond prices fell. The yield on the two-year Treasury jumped 78 basis points to 4.669%.
December 7, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
It’s probably not enough to push the Federal Reserve to cut rates on the schedule that Wall Street is hoping for –with the first cut in March 2024–but it does make a “no increase in interest rates” result from the December 13 Fed meeting even more likely.
October 31, 2023 | Daily JAM |
The “experts” expect that the Labor Department’s employment situation report on Friday, November 3, will show that the U.S. economy added 190,000 jobs in October. That would be a big drop from the 336,000 jobs added in September. But remember that these experts were projecting that the economy would add just 170,000 jobs before the September report.
October 4, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Private payrolls rose by just 89,000 jobs in September, according to figures published today by the ADP Research Institute. That’s the fewest jobs added in a month since the start of 2021. Private payrolls climbed 180,000 in August. The results trailed all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The report is more evidence of a further slowing in the labor market. “We are seeing a steepening decline in jobs this month,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said in a statement. “Additionally, we are seeing a steady decline in wages in the past 12 months.” Both trends would be good news for the Federal Reserve in its fight to lower inflation. And would be positives for a financial market which has seen bond yields rise and stock prices stagnate recently in fears that inflation might be staging a come back. Good news–if, that is, the ADP numbers can be believed.
July 6, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Earlier this week economists were projecting the official government jobs report due on Friday, that is tomorrow, would show that the U.S. economy added just 200,000 jobs in June. This morning, however, the ADP Research Institute’s survey of private employers showed the economy added 497,000 jobs in June. That’s more than twice the 220,000 gain that economists had projected for this report. And way above the 267,000 jobs reported by this survey in May.
June 2, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added a monster 339,000 jobs in May. Economists had been looking for 180,000 to 190,000 jobs. On the news, stocks rallied. Strongly. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.45%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 2.12% higher. The NASDAQ Composite added 1.07% and the NASDAQ 100 finished up 0.73%. The small-cap Russell 2000 moved higher by 3.56%. So why did stocks move up?
December 2, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 in November, the Labor Department said today. (And the October jobs total was revised upward to a gain of 284,000.) The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. Average hourly wages rose 0.6% in November from October. That was the biggest increase since January. Wages are now up 5.1% year-over-year. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for the economy to add 200,000 jobs in November and an unemployment rate of 3.7%. All of this shows a labor market that remains in top gear when the Federal Reserve has been looking for weakness in the jobs data as a sign that higher interest rates are slowing the economy enough to reach the Fed’s inflation rate goal.
November 1, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The JOLTS survey from the Department of Labor showed a big jump in job openings in September. Which raised market worries that the Fed will raise interest rates tomorrow, November 2, by a hefty 75 basis points and signal that it is farther away from a pivot toward lowering interest rates than this recent rally has hoped. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that the number of available positions climbed to 10.7 million in September from a revised 10.3 million in August. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for a drop to 9.8 million openings.
June 2, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists had expected the economy to add 318.000 jobs for the month. In April the economy added a revised 436,000 jobs. The unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.6%. Economists had expected a drop to 3.5%.
