Poor Mohammad El-Erian - just one of a parade of gloomy morose prognosticators Bloomberg has frequently featured on air over the past two or three months. Not to pick on just El-Erian, Larry Summers is another gloomy predictor they’ve rolled out since the market encountered a downdraft in March. Here’s
El-Erian in April .
Hilarious watching El-Erian try to do some sort of mid-course correction this morning after the hot (warmer?) data came out. Sounds like he’s pushing short / intermediate investment grade corporates at this point. Points to the dangers of trying to base long term investment decisions on these types of pronouncements. Truth is: Nobody knows where the global economy will be in a year - let alone 5 or 10 years. If you can’t have a 5-10 year time horizon, you shouldn’t be in equities & most risk assets at all.
Purely local and anecdotal - but in northern Mi it’s almost impossible getting construction / remodeling done this summer. Builders are backed up for months. I suspect a lot of money that would have gone to the airlines and hospitality businesses this summer is being pumped into home improvement projects instead. Tourism locally is down, but improving. Big box stores are crowded. Waited half an hour in a check-out line this week.
Link to May Jobs Report Story:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/u-s-jobless-rate-unexpectedly-fell-in-may-as-hiring-rebounded
Comments
I’m not too concerned they were fabricated. I do suspect they were leaked.
https://npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/05/869821293/as-america-struggles-to-return-to-work-staggering-unemployment-numbers-loom
Really?!? After the CPI dropped due to energy savings that no one could enjoy while facing over a 16% rise in the price of food . . . you're not a bit suspicious of these numbers.
Pat Heller from Liberty Coin reposted that pre South Bay Research estimates that the Bureau of Labor Statistics omitted 9.7 Million unemployed from todays' report for the following reasons: 4 million were dropped because the BLS revised its methodology since last month for counting the unemployed, 3.7 million because the BLS considers that many unemployment claims were fraudulent and 2 million were because of something they called the 'run rate'.
BTW, Mohammad admitted last night that he's not in the market at all. I'm presuming equities.
and so it goes,
GASLIGHT CITY . . .
rono
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-06-05/nfp-jobs-data-manipulated-all-paid-ppp-loans
“Fabricated” = “completely made up. An investigation will follow.” Geez, I don’t think so.
We had one last winter. You saw where that went.
“Cooked” = “distorted, exaggerated, shaded, tilted, incomplete, compromised and unreliable.” Yes. The government’s been doing that for years with the numbers. Cost of living is a great example.
Whether you believe the numbers or consider them wholly fabricated, the S&P is now up over 40% since late March. So the numbers today helped put $$ In the pockets of investors. The numbers might be as phony as a $1,000 bill. But if you pass a phony $1,000 bill and get away with it (putting morals aside), you still keep the goodies.
Hank, you're correct. The BLS has forever massaged the numbers to reflect the message they wanted to show. We can talk about the changes to the formulae that have continually taken place to put a better look on the figures. Anyone that wants to see some more realistic stats can go to shadowstats.com . I fully believe that every number they announced was based upon some truthful numbers. It's the way they are manipulated that cheeses their validity.
At this point in time with a President that tells shockingly terrible lies and gets away with it, why is ANYONE believing anything that comes out of Washington. Between now and the election, there's a great chance the numbers will look and feel so wonderful, and the investor class will be making $$$ and the zombie companies and industries will be gaslighting our asses . . . that we won't look about at the absolute destruction that's happened to main street and the working class and for anyone that doesn't happen to be white and invested.
Are you shitting me. This clown is naked and wall street and the so many are talking about how fine he looks. How nice his ties are. How great he looks in his suits.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
Afraid my response was a bit over the top. Apologies if I offended anyone here. You might like to know that “Fleck” who I read most days agrees with you, saying of today’s numbers, “... so obviously erroneous that I'm shocked anyone could believe it.“ But I don’t want to get in the habit of quoting / linking his subscription-based daily commentaries.
Regards
@rono, substantiate your charge
This is the same article published in Washington Post last night by Heather Long, a long respected financial reporter. Another data point from CNBC. That’s due an error in how furloughed workers were treated in the data sample. April’s unemployment rate would have been nearly 20% absent that same error. Question is how can this error released pre-maturely? And this get back to @TheShadow's question...
As a result of this new picture emerged, safe assets such as high quality bonds and gold declined for the week.
“ | If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to "other |
| reasons" (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical May) had |
| been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate |
| would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported (on a not seasonally |
| adjusted basis). However, according to usual practice, the data from the household |
| survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc actions are |
| taken to reclassify survey responses. |
| |
| More information is available at |
| www.bls.gov/cps/employment-situation-covid19-faq-may-2020.pdf.“
It’s not clear to me that this would change the number of unemployed. You would assume so but the 2 do not always go hand in hand.
@davidrmoran addressed Shadow's question. But then again, so did Heather Long's article:As a special added bonus, note that PK is also on record as having made the same statement. (In the words of Warner Wolf, let's go to the videotape. Check the 37 minute mark. "I'm mostly on the side of fast recovery ... IF the coronavirus is under control.")
It's terrible for them but good for America.
Then came their usual, it's a lie, it's meaningless, it's only low paying jobs why cheer.
When unemployment was the lowest ever (for many categories) months ago even then they didn't cheer. It's so ridiculous.
Wait, social distancing? no more. Let's march together, burn and loot our cities, and defund the police.
https://www.oann.com/new-wave-of-u-s-layoffs-feared-as-coronavirus-pain-deepens/
“ Last week’s filings would raise the number of people who filed claims for unemployment benefits to above 40 million since March 21. Economists cautioned this figure does not represent the number of jobs lost due to the pandemic, citing technical difficulties and procedures at state unemployment offices.”
Or these liberals?
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/jobless-claims-numbers-coronavirus-may-23
drill down into these threads as much as you can stand; Casselman is exemplary
https://twitter.com/bencasselman/status/1268936475791548416