The Jobs Report stunned Wall Street this morning at 8:30am ET. From the trenches, the traders bought the news quickly. The Futures spiked up 15 points on the S&P sending shorts running for cover. While this number was tremendous, it also has to be looked at as slightly suspicious. Why? Mainly due to the fact that you are going into the holiday season and a large jump in workers which off set losses was due to temporary jobs. In other words, retailers hiring for seasonal employment going into Black Friday and Christmas. This hiring helped reduce the amount of net lost jobs in a major way. In addition, 100k people decided to stop looking for work. This comes off the top as once they stop technically looking for work, they are not counted in the unemployment rate which dropped from 10.2% to 10%. Why do people stop looking for work? Well at some point, especially into the holidays, people tend to throw in the towel. Either it gets too frustrating and depressing to continue to not find work or the holidays are a time to spend it with the kids, wives and extended family, rather than being out hitting the pavement. In any case, the number was a solid number. As a Chief Market Strategist, I give it a B+ rating. Most will give it an A+, however, noting what I have said in the paragraph above, I think we should still remain slightly cautious and not throw a parade just yet. Also note that the economic data has remained ugly aside from the jobs report. That has to be factored in as well.
Chief Market Strategist gives the Jobs Report a B+ rating.
