The U.S. Labor Department may be late this month with the unemployment and nonfarm payrolls report, but the ADP payrolls data is giving a weaker-than-expected look at the jobs market. ADP has reported that the private sector created only 130,000 jobs in the month of October.
Dow Jones was calling for a gain of 150,000 and Bloomberg was calling for a more realistic reading of 138,000. ADP also is pointing out that September’s job gain was revised down from 166,000 to 145,000.
This all sounds bad for the economy on the surface, and it should. Where this gets interesting is that this might not actually be so bad for stocks and bonds.
For starters, it seems like a major victory that any jobs were created at all when Washington, D.C., and the federal government were closed down for over half of the month and drove us toward a debt default collision. The other reason this is likely to be viewed positively is because it gives Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen the cover needed to keep up that $85 billion in monthly bond buying under quantitative easing.
S&P 500 futures were up almost three points and DJIA futures were up almost 40 points. The 10-year Treasury yield was hovering right around the 2.50% level. As a reminder, Wednesday is also the end of the Fed’s FOMC meeting, and the policy announcement should be made around 2:00 p.m. EST.
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