Archive - Nov 2, 2012 - Story

Curious which sectors, according to the BLS, have been hiring in the past year? Per the Establishment survey, of the 1,949K or so jobs added in the past year, the bulk of additions have come to the Professional and Business Services sector (525K), Education and Health (414K), and Trade, Transportation and Utilities (345K). Government has actually seen a decline in total jobs in the past year.

As expected, a whopping beat of expectations of 125,000 with 171,000 jobs added In October, and the Unemployment Rate rising modestly to 7.9%, but below the magical 8.0%. And while the U-3 rose, the U-6, or underemployment, declined from 14.7% to 14.6%. Go figure. And finally, the Birth Death adjustment came just 10K off our forecast, printing at 90K.

Today's jobs number is expected to come at 125,000, with a high estimate of 154,000 from John Hancock financial, and a low of 30,000 from Westpac Banking, and with a whisper expectation at 150,000 courtesy of yesterday's "stronger than expected" ADP re-revised print. A beat or miss at over 1 standard deviation will promptly wake the HFT algos from their deep slumber. Wait did we say miss? Hah. Anyway, just to put today's seasonally adjusted expected monthly job growth in context, below is a chart showing the average seasonal adjustment for each month of the year in the past decade. In October, seasonal adjustments subtract just over 1 million "jobs" (purely statistically of course, merely to smooth the underlying "noise"). This means that the final monthly print will be just over 10% of the actual X-12-ARIMA goalseeked statistical adjustment. Add to this another ~80K or so which will be "added" from the birth death adjustment, and one can see how in the grand scheme of things, the statistical error factor alone dwarfs what is the actual underlying data. To think that in this labyrinth of layered adjustments to an actual number, the BLS will somehow allow the final number to be disappointing means having a locked bid on the Alaska to Russia bridge market.

• Scope of Sandy's devastation widens, death toll spirals (Reuters)
• On Staten Island, cries for help replaced by a loss for words (Reuters)
• China responds to Japan’s provocation (FT)
• Japan governments open to compromise to avoid “fiscal cliff” (Reuters)
• It's Global Warming, Stupid (Businessweek)
• Sharps says there is "Material Doubt" about its ability to survive (Bloomberg)
• Thomson Reuters operating profit slips, trading faces pressure (Reuters)
• Germany's Schaeuble says debt reduction is global task (Reuters)
• The Luxury Repo Men (Businessweek)
• Deutsche Bank Faces Top Surcharge as FSB Shuffles Tiers (Bloomberg)
• Storm over ‘Lagarde list’ intensifies (FT)
• Greek, European Officials Dispute Budget Reprieve (WSJ)
• Rivals part ways over economy (FT)

Judging by complete lack of move in the futures since the last time we looked at them at close of US market (if not so much the EURUSD which moments ago touched its lowest level since October 10 below 1.2865), absolutely nothing has happened in the intervening 14 hours. Which wouldn't be too far from the truth. Europe reported its manufacturing PMIs, which while largely unchanged at the consolidated (Eurozone 45.4 on Exp. of 45.3, last 45.3) and core level (Germany 46.0 vs Exp. 45.7, Last 45.7; France 43.7 vs Exp. 43.5, last 43.5) showed some weakness for the one fulcrum country that everyone looks at: Spain, whose Mfg PMI dropped from 44.6 to 43.5 on Exp of 44.1. But at least the threat the ECB will buy its bonds is there. And Speaking of Spain (whose car registrations tumbled 21.7% in October), the first external condition appeared today, when EU competition commission Joaquin Almunia said seized Spanish banks must fire half their workforce, according to ABC. Finally back in the US, the Fed's Rosengren said the Fed will not stop monetizing until the jobless rate falls below 7.25%. Luckily, with the NFP report due in 90 minutes, and the labor participation rate set to tumble once more, we may just get that in today's key data highlight which everyone is waiting for.