Earlier this week the Markets were buoyed up by some favorable economic reports coming out, but most significantly by yesterday's ADP Employment report that predicted a 157K increase in private jobs. Traders that were holding short positions given the low seasonal performance of markets in summer months, further drove markets up in a "short squeeze rally".
Come Friday morning, the BLS Employment report came out, and proved ADP wrong...yet again. According top BLS estimates, only 18K Non-Farm jobs were added in June, much lesser than the 105K economists were expecting and a miniscule fraction of the 157K ADP predicted. And this is a consistent pattern in the past year, ADP has been off vs BLS by 50% or more on at least 6 occasions. That is a coin toss. So I say either ADP proves why they have a better read on employment than BLS or they stop reporting this number in the public interest...as it is the markets are jittery and beyond the implications to investors, the markets have a direct bearing on consumer and corporate morale. We do not need another volatile factor added to an already chaotic mix of indicators.
