So much for a March rate cut.
In our preview of today's jobs report we quoted Goldman trader John Flood who said that a "hot print was the worst case scenario" (with the whisper number around 190K also well above consensus of 175K), and as if hearing that and eager to make an already ugly week even more painful for traders, moments ago the BLS reporter that in December the US added a whopping 216K jobs, smashing estimates of 175K and coming above almost all Wall Street estimates.
That said, we are comfortable with predicting that next month today's print will be revised sharply lower (perhaps even below 175K, meaning today was a miss). Why do we say that? Because once again the BLS revised not just one but both previous months sharply lower:
- October revised down 45K from 150K to 105K
- November revised down 26K from 199K to 173K
This means that ten of the past 11 jobs reports have been revised substantially lower.
And as if the BLS got not a tap on the shoulder, but was being literally Corn-popped by Biden, every other metric came in laughably strong in December, starting with unemployment which remained at 3.7%, missing estimates of a rise to 3.8%. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.5 percent), adult women (3.3 percent), teenagers (11.9 percent), Whites (3.5 percent), Blacks (5.2 percent), Asians (3.1 percent), and Hispanics (5.0 percent) showed little change in December.
Even more remarkable was that wages, which were expected by many to drop (not us - thank you crazy labor union negotiations), actually came in red hot, as average hourly earnings rose 0.4%, above the 0.3% estimate, and rose to 4.1% from 4.0%, and negating expectations of a decline to 3.9%, as wage growth it appears is here to stay.
Developing
