Archive - Jun 5, 2015

Underneath the Propaganda, the Economy Is In BAD Shape …

One of the defining features of jobs "recovery" and the main reason why wage growth has been so far below the Fed's expectations for years it has prevented wage inflation from appearing despite years of QE, is that the quality of jobs added month after month has disappointing. May was no difference. Yes, the headline print of 280K job additions was great, but a quick look at how the BLS got there shows that nothing has changed because four of the five main job additions were, as usual for the lowest paid jobs.

One the heels of last night’s hacking accusations, China has now responded, calling the US allegations “groundless” and “irresponsible.” The breach, which involves four million federal workers, could affect every agency of the U.S. government.

Moments ago, the biggest single employer in the US after the Federal government, with 2.2 million workers, surprised its shareholders when it announced that Rob Walton, who had served as Chairman of the Board since 1992, was stepping down (he will stay on as a director) and would be replaced with vice-Chairman Greg Penner, grandson of founder Sam and son in law of Rob, who started his career at Goldman Sachs before joining WMT as a management trainee.

The biggest malady affecting the US economy today, is still in place: as the chart below shows, the labor force participation rate rose just barely from 62.8% to 62.9%, a range it has been for the past year. Indicatively, the last time the US labor force was here, was in mid-1978.

The one data point in today's otherwise impressive jobs report which may generate some skepticism about an imminent rate hike is that while full-time jobs did grow at a brisk 630K pace in May as part-time jobs this month tumbled, the total number of full-time jobs at 121.4 million is still about half a million below their pre-recession peak of 121.9 million reached in November 2007.

Despite the rise in the unemployment rate - which by now become nothing more than a joke - the jobs report (at the headline level) was too good for the bulls demding moar for longer. The kneejerk reaction was a selloff in bonds, commodities, and stocks as the dollar surged amid rate hike delay hopes. As time passed stocks bounced back a little but bond yields and the dollar continue to press notably higher and crude has given up all its OPEC gains.

Contrary to expectations of a modest 226K increase in nonfarm payrolls, according to the BLS in May the US added a whopping 280K jobs, with the April print revised from 223K to 221K, but March revised higher from 85K to 119K. This was the highest monthly increase in payrolls since December of 2014.  The unemployment rate rose from 5.4% to 5.5% on the number, as the number of employed Americans according to the Household Survey also rose by an almost equal 272K.

When OPEC did not cut production last November, the oil market collapsed in shock and awe that the cartel would not just give in and allow non-OPEC members to walk away with market share. Today, in Vienna, "exactly as expected," OPEC once again confirmed production will remasin at 30 million barrels per day in the face of the global oil glut and prices for WTI and Brent have jumped $0.50 to $1.00 (we presume on machines and removal of a worst case boost to production).

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is set to address parliament Friday as difficult discussions with creditors have reached yet another stalemate. In Germany, some reports suggest there's now tension between German Chancelor Angela Merkel and FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble regarding how the EU paymaster should handle Greece going forward. Meanwhile, Tsipras and Putin will hold a phone call Friday to discuss "business and energy." 

• Europe shares set for worst week of 2015 (Reuters)
• Jobs Report Not Likely to Trigger June Rate Hike (Hilsenrath)
• U.S. jobs market seen firming despite lackluster growth (Reuters)
• Gross Says Bond Rout Scary as Hell Even Without Bear Market (BBG)
• Apple Is the New Pimco, and Tim Cook Is the New King of Bonds (BBG), which ZH said in 2013
• In 'year of Apple Pay', many top retailers remain skeptical (Reuters)
• OPEC Nations Signal Few Prospects for Oil-Production Change (BBG)
• China regulator says amending rules on margin trading, short selling  (Reuters)

The most important not yet double seasonally-adjusted economic datapoint is upon us: in 90 minutes the BLS will report the May payrolls number which consensus expects to rise by 225K, (range of 140K to 305K), barely unchanged from April's 223K. The meaningless unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.4%, even as the number of people not in the labor force likely will rise to a new record high. The most important variable, however, will be the hourly earnings with consensus expecting a 0.2% increase for all workers (the non-supervisory workers category is a different story entirely), up from the 0.1% increase in April.

After yesterday's unprecedented volatility fireworks across all markets and continents, today so far has been a modest disappointment, with no crashes and subsequent surges in China, where the Politburo's only achievement was keeping the bubble dream alive by pushing the Shanghai Composite over 5,000 for the first time since January 2008, closing the index 1.5% higher on the day - a very modest gain by China's recent blow-off top standards.  Europe, too, has been relatively tame with the 10 Year Bund starting off on the wrong foot, the yield rising back above 0.91% before once again dipping to the upper 0.8% range, tracking the move in the EURUSD tick for tick, which also is a tractor beam for the US 10 Year. On the equity, front, things are just as muted, with futures at the Low of Day as of this moment, despite yesterday's last minute manic buying spree, the S&P set to open below 2100 as a result.

Despite the sputtering economy, despite report after report that indicates that global economies are slowing down, despite the historic amount of money printing that has done little to nothing to fix these issues, there are those out there who believe that the solution to all our problems is more of the same. More money printing.