Trimtabs’ Charles Biderman on the suspicious jobs report that encouraged risk traders on Friday.
“The biggest headline for all financial media today is that the US economy added a much more than expected 243,000 jobs in January, and 446,000 jobs over the past two months. That is many more new jobs than our estimate of less than 50,000 for January and our estimate of 90,000 for December and January…
The BLS each month reports two data series, but only one jobs number is reported by the media. Actual jobs outstanding, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments – made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists that 2.9 million less jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs for January and December.
No one I know has any idea as to how the BLS does this seasonal adjustment. BLS historic data is changed almost every month until the income tax returns for each year are available three years in arrears. In other words, the BLS currently has accurate data for 2008 and before.
I keep repeating that the BLS refuses to use the data embedded in income tax collections to be able to report real time jobs and wages. Why does it refuse? Could the reason it refuses to use real time data on jobs and incomes be because perhaps this jobs number is politically motivated? The entire world is looking at US job creation as a proxy on how well Obama is doing? Could the Obama administration be pressuring its economist employees to create the best possible new jobs number?
Obviously I am quite suspicious of the numbers that I see in today’s BLS press release. Remember most financial journalists and even stock market strategists do nothing more than rewrite government press releases. So do not expect very few others to question the good news.
For those of you who care, look at Table B-1, Total Nonfarm Employment in today’s BLS press release attached… [click to see it here] Start with the non seasonally adjusted table that shows that in November 2011, there were 133.172 million actual jobs. Actual jobs dropped by 220,000 jobs in December and actual jobs dropped an additional 2.7 million in January. Only as a result of unknown seasonal adjustments, could the BLS report 243,000 new hires in January.”
Here is the direct link to the clip.
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Drop the L from BLS and you will really know where the stats come from.
It must be horribly skewed with global warming effects. We here in Chicago have had hardly any snow to speak of, and the ground is bare and workable. Heck, I raked out a garden that I usually don’t get to until March…and I did it in JANUARY.
JANUARY! Although the snowplowers are going bankrupt, the rest of the building trades and quite busy and chewing through their backlogs. But the problem is they are doing it so unimpeded that it is quite likely work will ‘dry up’ and then the manure hits the fan.
Strange times these global warmings are….I know we are going to be calling the lawn chemical companies early as there are weeds coming up now in January that usually aren’t seen for months. Quite a lot of folks are pulling out their boots and gloves and are out in the yards! USDA even adjusted the Plant Zone charts for the first time in 50 years to allow the northern zones to grow plants more likely to do well to the southern climes. I advise against that, since one hard freeze will wipe you out.
Ann Barnhardt: GAME OVER!
http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2012/01/ann-barnhardt-game-over.html
employment statistics are always spun to show the government in power in the best possible light. I generally don’t believe them.
It sure has been quite a rally since December 20–who woulda thunk after the shellacking we took from July 2011 on. But even as bad as the markets got hit, it wasn’t enough to be a bear, or reset the base count. There are far, far too many stage 4 base structures out there to be very comfy with. That said, methinks this is just a good old-fashioned election year rally–trade it for what its worth–but I certainly wouldn’t be fully invested at this time. There is a lot of leverage being employed here and a lot of it is loose change.