Opening Market Commentary For 04-04-2014
Premarkets were sailing along at +0.05% until the ‘not-so-good’ March Payroll and Unemployment came in as a miss. The ‘Taper the Taper’ advocates jumped in and drove the premarkets up in the +0.55% area.
The opening bell saw fireworks driving the DOW and the SP500 up again setting new historic highs at 16629.90 and 1897.28 respectively. The small caps were also up but began to fall within the first 5 minutes along with the large caps. Another Pump-and-Dump opening and the ‘Sheeples’ get the shaft again.
By 10 am the averages fallen off the morning highs with the large caps in the green and the small caps floundering near the red. The volume (and volatility) was all over the charts and should be a productive session for the brave traders.
As much as the Keynesian fundamentalists would love to see the Fed taper slowed, I do not it will as the Yellen run Fed will stick to their guns and continue the taper for a number of reasons.
March Payrolls Miss 192K, Below 200K Expected, Unemployment Rate 6.7% Above 6.6% Expected
Here are the key numbers: March payrolls +192K, below the 200K expected (LaVorgna 275K). This was a drop from the upward revised February print of 197K.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%, and above the 6.6% expected. The participation rate rose modestly from 63.0% to 63.2% as the labor force rose by 500K to 156,226 while the people not in the labor force declined by over 300K to 91,030.
Manufacturing jobs had the largest drop since July. The number of unemployed rose 27K to 10,486K.
Conclusion:Â it snowed in March too, but judging by the perfectly expected stock reaction, it snowed in a good way.
The first column is what was reported this morning. The second column is what was expected and the third is the last report.
Private payrolls and hourly earnings also took a hit reporting ‘not-so-good’ numbers.
Stocks, Bonds, And Gold Surge On Dismal Jobs Data Miss
Â
Bad news is the best news this morning.
A higher unemployment rate and worse than expected job creation is the new mother’s milk for stocks which kneejerked instantly to new record highs.
Bond yields are tumbling and gold is surging (back over $1300) as ‘investors’ believe this will signal an un-taper (because QE did so much good for so long) or lower-for-longer chatter (so more buybacks?).
