All Hail December’s Job Numbers

January 6, 2005 4:53pm by

I keep getting asked what I expect the number to be tomorrow; Quite frankly, I haven’t the slightest idea what it will be — despite the mid-day DJ headline, cheerleading Fed’s Hoenig — Dec Jobs Report Likely To Show More Growth.

Why discount Hoenig? He also said "I think a number in the order of two million net new jobs in 2005 is in the realm of possibility."

Of course, an alien invasion is also in the realm of possibility — its just not the in the realm of likely outcomes. I am out of patience with that sort of linguistical garbage.

Instead, let’s consider the most recent data points. They have all pointed towards a soft number tomorrow:

· The Challenger layoff numbers were higher than expected;

· The ISM employment data was worse than expected;

· The new unemployment data was worse than expected;

· Online job advertising giant Monster.com said its employment index eased, with online demand for workers decreasing in 19 out of 23 occupational categories in the month of December.

So if I was a gambling sort of fellow, I would take the under rather than the over . . .

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  1. david bennett commented on Jan 6

    on a completely unrelated note I’m not sure if this site is listed at:

    http://www.phatinvestor.com/

    For some reason he doesn’t alphabetically order the list of blogs.

    At this stage it’s fairly incomplete and he doesn’t seem to actively search out resources, but it’s a good beginning in uniting the various blogs, but for some reason he isn’t interested in finance information in other formats.

    You can use this site to get a list of quite a few things which are out there and more importantly to search for key words in these various sources. As I’ve probably said before it’s a good beginning.

  2. david bennett commented on Jan 6

    I’ll have to take back my critiques. The guy who has put together phatinvesting did so incredibly quickly and the limits have been the constraints of an individual working alone.

    The tool is already useful and my inclination is to support it and give the guy a chance to develop it. He is putting together a system of immense potential for investors. Imagine being able to search hundreds of relevant sites for commentary on a specific stock or other topic.

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