Unemployment? What Unemployment!

[hoodoo]

The meme is being delivered very forcefully now.

Unemployment is down <- todays news!

The recession is over

Home sales are up

Auto dealership inventories are low

The stock market is up

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++

Payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate unexpectedly dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=am2AmQwl3XfE

[WildspitzE]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

Re: 9.4%, the labor force declined by 422,000. woops.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Bullhorn on 11 today.

[goadam1]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

The meme is being delivered very forcefully now.

Unemployment is down <- todays news!

The recession is over

Home sales are up

Auto dealership inventories are low

The stock market is up

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++

Payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate unexpectedly dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=am2AmQwl3XfE

Now you know what a trillion dollars buys. Coming soon: turn in your old energy appliances for new green machines.

[don]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

A billion bucks to goose auto manufacturing plus the feds census hires. They simply can't do it anymore. The venality appears to have been too deep and gone on for too long. What's it to be- permanent census taking? Why not :p

[sn1p3r]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

I don't think census takers is what he has in mind...

We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

[WildspitzE]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

more from john williams and rosie... posted on zerohedge.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tru...ays-bls-report

"
The confidence game in turbo boost mode. The market is oblivious of the underlying data behind today's "better than expected" BLS computer model output. Yet for the few remaining who do care about the increasingly irrelevant fundamentals, we provide some observations. Here are facts from John Williams' Shadow Stats:

July usually sees a regular pattern of planned automobile production line shutdowns to accommodate retooling for the new model year, but recent disruptions to the auto industry have changed pattern this year. Without the usual pattern of shutdowns, the government’s computers nonetheless responded by creating the usual offsetting boost in jobs, not only in the auto industry, but in supporting industries as well. The auto industry itself was alone among durable goods manufacturing industries in showing a reported, seasonally-adjusted monthly gain in July, up by 28,000 jobs. [Would anybody who recently got a job at Chrysler and GM please write us immediately]
...
While Wall Street likely will hype the July employment results as confirmation that economy has turned the corner, such hype and resulting overly optimistic expectations should be slammed in the months ahead, when the positive reporting distortions reverse out in a normal catch-up process.
...
The unadjusted annual declines in the June and July payrolls remain the deepest since a similar decline at the trough of the 1958 recession, but still shy of the 4.9% trough seen in the 1949 downturn. When the 1949 annual low growth is broken, most likely next month, the annual percentage contraction in payrolls will be the most severe since the production shutdown following World War II.
...
- Birth-Death/Bias Factor Adjustment. As discussed in SGS Newsletter No. 51, Birth-Death Model biases tend to overstate payroll employment during recessions. Never designed to handle the downside pressures from an economic contraction, the model adds a fairly consistent upside bias to the payroll levels each year, currently averaging about 76,000 jobs per month. The unadjusted July 2009 bias was 32,000, up from 25,000 the year before, but down from 185,000 in June.

And some observations from David Rosenberg:

U.S. nonfarm payroll surprise but less than meets the eye Today's employment report is being treated as a 'green shoot' of major proportions. While it was by far the best jobs performance of the year, much of the better-than-expected tally in nonfarm payrolls reflected the bounce in auto production as well as the distortion from the federal census workers. Combined, these two influences effectively "added" 100,000 to the headline number, so net-net, the consensus view of -325,000 was not as far off the mark as the market believed at first glance.

• Payrolls came in at -247k in July — the consensus was at -325k
• Upward revisions by 43k to the back data
• Unemployment rate down to 9.4% from 9.5% (but as in Canada, due to a sliding labour force — down 422k in the U.S.)
• We are going to see a big increase in industrial production for July — manufacturing workweek jumped 0.8% MoM
• Income was surprisingly strong — average weekly earnings rose 0.5% MoM (after a 0.3% decline in June)

The auto sector added 28,200 to the industry payroll in July, which was the highest tally in 11 years. To show you just how big that really is, it is a 69% annualized surge. Normally, the industry, which is in secular decline, posts job losses of between 20,000 and 30,000 consistently, so this alone represented roughly a 50,000 swing. We estimate that there was about a 30,000 swing in the rest of the manufacturing sector due to the spillover from the current inventory adjustment in the motor vehicle industry. The 0.3% MoM increase in the workweek was also skewed by the 4.1% MoM jump in the auto sector.

[T]here have been large fluctuations in the federal government payroll too. After hiring a slew of Census workers in the spring, there were 57,000 layoffs in May-June and then we saw in today’s report that 12,000 federal workers were “hired” in July. Again, mathematically, this contributed about 20,000 to today’s headline number. In other words, and we have no intent on raining on anyone’s parade, there was about 100,000 non-recurring payrolls in that top-line figure. It may be dangerous to extrapolate today’s report into a view that we are about to fully turn the corner on the job market front.

To be sure, the drop in the unemployment rate was a surprise, but it was all due to the slide in the labour force — the employment-to-population ratio gives a more accurate picture of the slack in the labour market and the hidden secret in today’s report was that this metric slid to a 25-year low of 59.4% from 59.5% in June and 61.0% at the turn of the year. Of those unemployed, 33.8% of them have been unemployed now for over 27 weeks — a record amount (was at 29.0% in June and was at 17.5% at the start of this recession)."

And to conclude with Rosie:

“Bear markets have three stages – (i) sharp down, ii) reflexive rebound, and iii) a drawn-out fundamental downtrend”.

We have little doubt as to which stage we are in today.

[cjppjc]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

Great charts WildspitzE. Thanks. Now put the gun down.

[don]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

That can segue right into watching each other, if that's what floats your boat.

[Quincy K]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

more from john williams and rosie... posted on zerohedge.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tru...ays-bls-report

"
The confidence game in turbo boost mode. The market is oblivious of the underlying data behind today's "better than expected" BLS computer model output. Yet for the few remaining who do care about the increasingly irrelevant fundamentals, we provide some observations. Here are facts from John Williams' Shadow Stats:

July usually sees a regular pattern of planned automobile production line shutdowns to accommodate retooling for the new model year, but recent disruptions to the auto industry have changed pattern this year. Without the usual pattern of shutdowns, the government’s computers nonetheless responded by creating the usual offsetting boost in jobs, not only in the auto industry, but in supporting industries as well. The auto industry itself was alone among durable goods manufacturing industries in showing a reported, seasonally-adjusted monthly gain in July, up by 28,000 jobs. [Would anybody who recently got a job at Chrysler and GM please write us immediately]
...
While Wall Street likely will hype the July employment results as confirmation that economy has turned the corner, such hype and resulting overly optimistic expectations should be slammed in the months ahead, when the positive reporting distortions reverse out in a normal catch-up process.
...
The unadjusted annual declines in the June and July payrolls remain the deepest since a similar decline at the trough of the 1958 recession, but still shy of the 4.9% trough seen in the 1949 downturn. When the 1949 annual low growth is broken, most likely next month, the annual percentage contraction in payrolls will be the most severe since the production shutdown following World War II.
...
- Birth-Death/Bias Factor Adjustment. As discussed in SGS Newsletter No. 51, Birth-Death Model biases tend to overstate payroll employment during recessions. Never designed to handle the downside pressures from an economic contraction, the model adds a fairly consistent upside bias to the payroll levels each year, currently averaging about 76,000 jobs per month. The unadjusted July 2009 bias was 32,000, up from 25,000 the year before, but down from 185,000 in June.

And some observations from David Rosenberg:

U.S. nonfarm payroll surprise but less than meets the eye Today's employment report is being treated as a 'green shoot' of major proportions. While it was by far the best jobs performance of the year, much of the better-than-expected tally in nonfarm payrolls reflected the bounce in auto production as well as the distortion from the federal census workers. Combined, these two influences effectively "added" 100,000 to the headline number, so net-net, the consensus view of -325,000 was not as far off the mark as the market believed at first glance.

• Payrolls came in at -247k in July — the consensus was at -325k
• Upward revisions by 43k to the back data
• Unemployment rate down to 9.4% from 9.5% (but as in Canada, due to a sliding labour force — down 422k in the U.S.)
• We are going to see a big increase in industrial production for July — manufacturing workweek jumped 0.8% MoM
• Income was surprisingly strong — average weekly earnings rose 0.5% MoM (after a 0.3% decline in June)

The auto sector added 28,200 to the industry payroll in July, which was the highest tally in 11 years. To show you just how big that really is, it is a 69% annualized surge. Normally, the industry, which is in secular decline, posts job losses of between 20,000 and 30,000 consistently, so this alone represented roughly a 50,000 swing. We estimate that there was about a 30,000 swing in the rest of the manufacturing sector due to the spillover from the current inventory adjustment in the motor vehicle industry. The 0.3% MoM increase in the workweek was also skewed by the 4.1% MoM jump in the auto sector.

[T]here have been large fluctuations in the federal government payroll too. After hiring a slew of Census workers in the spring, there were 57,000 layoffs in May-June and then we saw in today’s report that 12,000 federal workers were “hired” in July. Again, mathematically, this contributed about 20,000 to today’s headline number. In other words, and we have no intent on raining on anyone’s parade, there was about 100,000 non-recurring payrolls in that top-line figure. It may be dangerous to extrapolate today’s report into a view that we are about to fully turn the corner on the job market front.

To be sure, the drop in the unemployment rate was a surprise, but it was all due to the slide in the labour force — the employment-to-population ratio gives a more accurate picture of the slack in the labour market and the hidden secret in today’s report was that this metric slid to a 25-year low of 59.4% from 59.5% in June and 61.0% at the turn of the year. Of those unemployed, 33.8% of them have been unemployed now for over 27 weeks — a record amount (was at 29.0% in June and was at 17.5% at the start of this recession)."

And to conclude with Rosie:

“Bear markets have three stages – (i) sharp down, ii) reflexive rebound, and iii) a drawn-out fundamental downtrend”.

We have little doubt as to which stage we are in today.

This chart doesn't mean anything. Abbey Joseph Cohen says that the S&P 500 will end up at 1100 by years end.

She would never lie to us and is about the most impartial forecaster that I can think of. She is about as honest as they come.

[cjppjc]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

This chart doesn't mean anything. Abbey Joseph Cohen says that the S&P 500 will end up at 1100 by years end.

She would never lie to us and is about the most impartial forecaster that I can think of. She is about as honest as they come.

And Kudlow telling her "It's great to have you on. You've made some great bullish calls."

It was gross. If she was in the studio, Larry would have licked her face. It's a good thing the camera only shoots from the neck up.:eek:

[xyzzy]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

From http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Actual number of people employed:

May: 140,570,000
June: 140,196,000
July: 140,041,000

However, each of these months, the labor force "shrank", due to several hundred thousand people giving up on finding a job altogether. Due to the magic of statistics, when 500,000 people give up on finding a job and stop looking, unemployment goes down.

If we can just get 7 million more people to give up permanently on finding a job, we'll have that unemployment problem licked!

[Quincy K]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

And Kudlow telling her "It's great to have you on. You've made some great bullish calls."

It was gross. If she was in the studio, Larry would have licked her face. It's a good thing the camera only shoots from the neck up.:eek:

You know that chart is pretty convincing. That, coupled with EJ's calls to sell the S&P500 at 950-1050, that the DOW would again hit 10k and to expect dead-cat bounces to the eventual 5k destination, one could feel fairly confident about going short right now.

Not to mention Cohen opening her big mouth again. That's the real kicker.

I am going in at 1050.

[cjppjc]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

You know that chart is pretty convincing. That, coupled with EJ's calls to sell the S&P500 at 950-1050, that the DOW would again hit 10k and to expect dead-cat bounces to the eventual 5k destination, one could feel fairly confident about going short right now.

Not to mention Cohen opening her big mouth again. That's the real kicker.

I am going in at 1050.

Do you mean you'll short at 1050?

To me the chart is good because of all the noise I hear everyday. Plus these guys really know how to goose a market.

[Quincy K]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

Do you mean you'll short at 1050?

To me the chart is good because of all the noise I hear everyday. Plus these guys really know how to goose a market.

Yes. I am going all in. I don't have the link but something like ninety percent of the volume in this rally has been all institutional-related. Private investors have not directly participated. The USF basically told these guys(GS/JPM) to buy stocks and all the other HF's followed suit is my understanding squeezing all the shorts in the process.

Bill Gross recently came out and said that P/E ratios are going to shoot below the historical mean(12-15) and he also feels that prices will be determined by dividends. He has minimal exposure to the financials.

That, and long-time bear Reggie Middleton has just recently covered his short positions.

[don]

Re: Unemployment? What Unemployment!

From http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Actual number of people employed:

May: 140,570,000
June: 140,196,000
July: 140,041,000

However, each of these months, the labor force "shrank", due to several hundred thousand people giving up on finding a job altogether. Due to the magic of statistics, when 500,000 people give up on finding a job and stop looking, unemployment goes down.

If we can just get 7 million more people to give up permanently on finding a job, we'll have that unemployment problem licked!

The Federal Teeter Totter:

Extend Unemployment Insurance / Trumpet Falling Unemployment Rate

As George Orwell spins merrily away in his grave....