Archive - May 2012 - Story

Sunday marks the day in Greece, France, parts of Italy and Spain. May 6 will stand out perhaps as the day when the fortunes of Europe were reversed and if not reversed; re-programmed. There has been a lot of talk about this of course and a lot of speculation in the Press and, one would think, that it had all been discounted by the markets but not so fast. The discount will only go as far as the political implications are generally understood and we would submit that the particularities of the European elections are not well understood at all. We think the markets’ reaction is a first blush notion which does not get close to the more pressing questions of what some of the potential changes in power will mean past the revelry of the election night parties. Mr. Hollande, in fact, represents the wave that is sweeping all across Europe which is a return to Nationalism, to tribal pride, to economic self-protection as the European Recession, as driven by the “austerity measures” and fiscal restrictions imposed by Berlin deepen both the economic travails and the reaction to finding your nation under the economic jack boots of Berlin. All of the changes of guard in Europe are going to have a profound effect upon the marketplace in my view. There will be a widening of credit/risk spreads, a decline in the equity markets, a decline of the Euro against the Dollar as Fear climbs back in the driver’s seat and as uncertainty is the prevalent theme of each day.
 

Last weekend we first warned our readers that Goldman just pulled the rug from under today's NFP number, by slashing their NFP forecast to 125,000, which was among the lowest (LaVorgna's 175,000 call was only 50% off... as usual). At the end even Goldman was high. Here is Hatzius' post-mortem.

The comedy continues: the April "Not in labor force" seasonally adjusted print: 88,419,000. And yet, the maximum reading permitted by St Louis Fed Not in Labor Force (LNS15000000) graph: 88,000,000. The data has now officially dropped off the chart. No further commentary necessary.

WTI crude just broke $100 (traded $99.99) - an almost 3 month low having dropped its most in the last 3 days since mid-December 2011. Remember: it has long been known that Obama, pardon Bernanke, will not allow THE NEW QE until a barrel of the black gold cost double digits. He just got his wish.

The seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll number rose by 115K in April. That's great: it was a miss but such is life. Here is what the unadjusted data that led to this number says. The seasonal addback in April was +22K, a rapid break from the last 3 years when April saw a negative seasonal adjustment following the traditional huge positive adjustments in the January-March period, which in turn means that the record warm winter give back has not even started! As a result, the seasonal addbacks in 2012 are now a massive 4,499,000 jobs: jobs that have not been added but are expected to materialize based on historical seasonal patterns. And just as importantly, in April the Birth-Death addition was a whopping 206K, far greater than the comparable addition in 2010 and 2011, and much bigger than expected, which brings the year total now to a +20K cumulative total. It means, that by rough estimation, the reality is that in April the unadjusted, unbirth/deathed number was a decline of -111,000, and likely far worse once the true weather adjustments start taking place. This number is corroborated by the Household Survey which dropped by 169,000. So much for the recovery.

Presented with little comment except to note that in the minute or so before the actual sanctioned release from the dark little room at the BLS, S&P 500 e-mini futures slumped by 7 pts, surged and then slumped again by 7pts - double the entire overnight range in those 30-45 seconds. So after all the efforts to maintain the integrity of the NFP release, it seemed someone knew something early...

it is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000.  This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

Expectations were for an increase in non farm payrolls of 160,000, and a 8.2% unemployment rate. We got +115,000, and 130,000 privates. Unemployment rate at 8.1%, lowest since January 2009. Schrodinger is alive and well.

More shortly

With everyone and their mother scrambling to come up with some utterly meaningless number (why is it meaningless? Because From January to March seasonal adjustments have "added" 4,477,000 jobs, and the monthly error interval is 100,000) to game the headline, which algos just can't wait for to send the market soaring (on either "virtuous circle" or "More QE" signals), here is our best suggestion on how to predict what the US economy will do all the way to the Planck constant. And at a sunk cost of only $24.99 to US taxpayers for bailed out US bank strategists, we are confident that expense committee will be able to say no to these oh so very critical products for the new "alive or dead" normal.

Here is what happened in Europe overnight, and why the market sentiment is already negative in advance of an NFP number which many are watching closely as a miss of expectations will cement the thesis that the US economy has now rolled over and will likely need more nominally dilutive aid from central planners to regain its upward slope:

• Spain Services PMI for April 42.1 – lower than expected. Consensus 45.4. Previous 46.3.
• Italian Services PMI for April 42.3 – lower than expected. Consensus 43.7. Previous 44.3.
• France Services PMI for April 45.2 – lower than expected. Consensus 46.4. Previous 46.4.
• Germany Service PMI for April 52.2 – lower than expected. Consensus 52.6. Previous 52.6.
• Euro-area Service PMI for April 46.9 – lower than expected. Consensus 47.9. Previous 47.9.

And while the data was bad enough to send European stocks and US stock futures lower, the latest meme spreading as the first US traders walk in, is one of reNEWed QE expectations already, if a very weak one for now.

• Japan has 54 nuclear reactors, but as of Saturday, not one of them will be in operation (Guardian)
• US Readies Proposal to Clamp Down on Fracking (Reuters)
• California pension fund (CALSTRS) sues Wal-Mart, alleges bribery (Reuters)
• New Ripples for Gupta Case: Goldman Share Price, Volume Began Climbing Even Before Rajaratnam Trades (WSJ)
• China says blind dissident can apply to study abroad (Reuters)
• China paper calls Chen a U.S. pawn; envoy is a "troublemaker" (Reuters)
• Samsung’s New Galaxy S Phone Raises Heat on Apple Iphone (Bloomberg)
• Draghi predicts 2012 eurozone recovery  (FT)
• Tumbling Home Ownership Marks a Return to Normal (Bloomberg)
• Zuckerberg Facebook IPO to Make Him Richer Than Ballmer (Bloomberg)
• SEC probes Chesapeake and its chief (FT)

Here is what Wall Street expects will be announced at 8:30 am Eastern today:

And while as usual the actual number will be largely meaningless, and is merely an indication of our headline chasing nature since as the BLS itself says the error interval is +/- 100,000, a few hnndred purely statistical jobs will make or break the market and send it soaring on either "virtuous circle" expectations, or on NEW QE coming back with a bang.