Latest Jobs Data - Not Pretty!

you clearly missed the upward revision for november--our first positive # since 12/07

jamba97,

What do you mean?

"upward revision for november"
"What do you mean?"

On December 4th, the BLS reported we lost 11,000 jobs in November.
On January 8th, the number was revised to say that in November the economy created 4,000 jobs.

The economy apparently went from -11K to +4K.

but october was revised down another 15,000. 4k, 10k, statistical blips.

from mish, take a look at this chart.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/S0ZG0MreEjI/AAAAAAAAHjU/XcIhLiQnUlg/s1600-h/weekly+claims1.png

again backward looking numbers. feels safe to make investing/RE decisions by this but that would be a mistake. both bond market and stock market, both discounting mechanisms, are predicting a strong economic recovery. so even if you thought these were bad numbers than why is the stock market not crashing today? an even more bullish sign-stocks rising or flat on "bad" news. and long term rates rising too. dumb money imitates what everyone else is doing and waits for confirmation. the smart money is betting against these hard numbers and anticipates. and that means RE has bottomed too folks.

since sentiment is extremely bullish, would that mean smart money would be bearish?

nice unquantifiable theory, though. you talk a good game.

Re: The economy apparently went from -11K to +4K.

BLS: "It was identified that 15,000 real estate brokers were still technically "employed" even though not a single one had sold a house"

west34, comment of the week.

"On January 8th, the number was revised to say that in November the economy created 4,000 jobs."

None of which exist today as they were all seasonal jobs for the holidays. You can take that report and wipe your you know what with it.

ar: the small investor is not traditionally bullish in this rally. too much fear this rally will peter out as they keep hearing nothing but bad news. when they do get bullish then you exit. apparently you have sat this rally out. too bad.still not too late to get in but you probably feel burned by missing this historic move off march '08 lows. let me know when you jump in. i will take that as a contrarian indicator

The most important report will be for January, released in early February. That will show us a TRUE picture of the job market since it will not include all of the seasonal jobs that are inflating the data. My guess is we will go right back to 10.2%.

As I mentioned on the other jobs data thread, this is not the worst jobs report. There was some good data in there.

Also, it is too early to get riled-up over the December #'s. Let's see what they are after their revision in a month or two and what January and February look like. This is moving in the right direction.

wannabuy, yes i have sat this rally out, for the most part. my record over the past few years is very good. decided to sit this one out for the most part, even after the light dawned that the worse the economy was doing the happier the market would be, what with those backstops and all.

but still, you are claiming forward signs. and this rally is looking more than a bit long in the tooth. even technically. does that mean it will stop tomorrow? no. is it a great time for retail to get in? no. will retail be your contrarian indicator this time? many large investors sure hope so, but many people were rather badly burned. i wonder if the pension funds, which are desperately trying to regain losses, will get out in time?

it's the new year. isn't it time to fix the b/d model f'ups? another 824,000 jobs lost, roughly? although it's JUST a number.

waverly, what did the job participation rate fall to? 64.6% 4% of the workforce has been out of work for more than 26 weeks. unemployment in total had been hovering around 5% prior to this debacle.

Re: the small investor

When will all the armchair Gordon Geckos learn that the best way to invest for the long term is to pick an asset allocation (by asset class) that matches your risk tolerance (eg 75% equities/20% bonds/5%cash), then simply rebalance your portfolio 1 or 2 times a year?

Works like a charm.

long live buy and hold.

AR - I hear you, but I still disagree with you.

waverly, thankfully not everyone is as pessimistic as i am. that would be dreadful. but still, the numbers are fugly.

wannabuy - I imagine the real estate bottom looking more like an ultra slow motion replay of the annual Letterman rooftop pumpkin drop. There's always a few to impact before the big group that follows, and always a few stragglers at the end. I like your forward thinking analysis though and mostly agree.

waverly---we've been at this argument for quite a while now.

i can see your point about november at either -11,000 or better yet +4,000.

but, come on, how does down 85,000 "move us in the right direction?" would down 140,000 been ok as well? etc, etc.

its bad enough that the gov't is spinning this like crazy but just amongst here, can't we be honest for a moment? furthermore, the idea that increases in temp labor is a good sign is a further absurdity. does it not occur to anyone that businesses are discovering that they can operate effectively with less people? oddly enough, in another context, this would be viewed as positive---a sign of increasing productivity.

Columbiacounty - regarding your "efficiency" comment here is an interesting graph:

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-goods-producing-wrokers-vs-government-payroll-2010-1

...perhaps an indication of where jobs will be growing once we emerge out of this downturn .

aboutready
about 8 hours ago
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...
but still, you are claiming forward signs. and this rally is looking more than a bit long in the tooth. even technically. does that mean it will stop tomorrow? no. is it a great time for retail to get in? no. will retail be your contrarian indicator this time? many large investors sure hope so, but many people were rather badly burned. i wonder if the pension funds, which are desperately trying to regain losses, will get out in time?
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aboutready is now a market technical analyst. gotta love her versatility.

This is how they're doing it. Maybe. Caveat Emptor
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=26223198&mdc=4395284

and you know january is gonna be worse since alot of temps will have been let go. Its so bad

It's just a monthly blip. The monthly moving averages are improving steadily. Leading economic indicators are pointed strongly higher. Productivity and profits are very strong. CFOs are increasingly positive about the outlook for 2010. The stock market just shrugged off the news. And, of course, all numbers are subject to revision.

It came out today that banks withdrew 16+ billion of consumer credit. more people are unemployed / underemployed today than a year ago. yeah stocks are up..with all the money being thrown at financial assets theres only one way to go. without strong job creation, we arent going anywhere

"Consumers" reduced their debt last month by $17.5 B, the biggest monthly drop on record. That's good news. Consumers are saving. They are rebuilding their stretched balance sheets.

actually its mostly banks pulling lines of credit

topper, you do realize that every foreclosure "reduces" debt? as does every credit default.

So sad

I guess people can say we're heading in the right direction if they look at is as 85K job lost in December 2009 is down almost 84% when compared with December 2008! Why is it so difficult for some people to understand that even if there were no job lost in December 2009, the unemployment rate is still at around 10%. We would need a net 700K job just to bring the unemployment rate back down to 9%. Yes, many companies will be hiring, but not likely in large volume. Some companies will also continue to cut in some area while hiring in another. We will not hiring people back at even close to the same rate that they were let go in the past two years. A key point is that many people are unemployed for an extended amount of time.

What is this obsession with the stock market and March'08? First of all, it's March '09, not '08. When a company make more money, the stock goes up... A company can make more money by reducing labor cost (pay reductions, job cuts, off shoring as in sending jobs out of the country). How does that help the LOCAL economy and jobs? Most major companies are global organizations. Stocks also goes up when the year to year revenue and earnings look better. They'll look greate especially when compared to historical lows. Guess what, when the first quarter 2010 RE sales data comes out, the y-o-y numbers are probably going to look great, especially the "number of sales" stats. Again, because it's going to be compared to a really bad quarter when it looks like the world is going to end.

Nothing wrong with optimism, just don't make stupid decisions based on it. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Be realistic people! It's going to be a slow recovery.

correction: We would need a net 1.5 million jobs just to bring the unemployment rate back down to 9%.

aboutready, my sister, is unemployed and not even trying

sunday: "Stocks also goes up when the year to year revenue and earnings look better. They'll look greate especially when compared to historical lows."

this is the kind of fundamental analysis that destroys most investors. how do you explain the internet stock bubble? few of those companies had any earnings or decent prospects for earnings when they came public. yet many saw their stock prices soar. how many times do we see a stock's price fall on good earnings news and rise on bad? trading with a rearview mirror makes no sense. stock prices move based on future prospects for a company or the economy. right now stocks and bonds are indicating a strong and rapid recovery. employment is usually the last thing to recover from a recession. all the economists, which you are parroting, are predicting a very slow jobs recovery. the obama administration does as well-nothing letting setting low expectations. these are the same economists who predicted a moribund stock market and soaring interest rates for 2009.

What's the actual number & percentage of unemployed people in NYC?

New York City’s unemployment rate jumped to 10.3 percent in August as the number of city residents unable to find work rose to a record high of 415,800, state officials said on Thursday.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/city-unemployment-rate-exceeds-10/

yes, a recovery indeed.

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/01/08/9-reasons-why-the-dec-jobs-report-is-bad-news-for-dems/
"Then will come the second-take stories that will notice the shrinking labor force, which dropped by nearly 700,000 from November. Had it stayed stable from last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent. Had it stayed stable since August, the jobless rate would be 11 percent!"

mutombo, nyc had been running slightly higher than the national average. it's usually in the comptroller's report (and elsewhere, but i like that report). i'll see if i can find it.

columbia.. what has happened to the number of manhattan residents from 2007 to now? up or down? at least to the last reasonable estimate

not sure how to get that number, at least reliably.

wikipedia, under new york city demographics, shows an interesting table.. apparently Manhattan hit peak 100 years ago around 2.3 mil

2000- to 2008, Manhattan went from 1.53 to 1.63.. these are census data according to the bibliography

I was just wondering if we are seeing an exodus from the city.. i doubt but recent data about the last 2 years would be so interesting

the article is titled Demographics of New York City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City#cite_note-42

NYS/NYC numbers for Dec'09 is scheduled to come out on Jan 21st. NYC is at 10% in Nov., NYS at 8.6% (7.6% excl NYC)

wannabuy, we can spend all day bringing up examples of stocks trading whatever the hell they want. Do you understand my point at all? Stock market is not always an accurate forward indicator. There are tons of reasons why stocks go up and down. After all the temporary hype, the fundamentals and current expectations will always bring the stock price back to Earth.

NYS Labor Dept site:
http://www.labor.state.ny.us/pressreleases/pressreleases.shtm

It has all the employment reports and tentative release dates.

topper, sorry i was wrong. it wouldn't include any real-estate related write offs. but any credit card write offs would be reflected in the reduction.

marco, this is actual reduction in debt owed. the amount of revolving credit available did also contract.

wannabuy: "...this is the kind of fundamental analysis that destroys most investors."

It's mostly greed, emotions, patience (too much or too little), arrogance, and laziness that destroys investors.