Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chispas who wrote (1548)	3/8/2004 10:00:58 PM
From: Chispas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

THE KING REPORT - From "basserdan" at I Hub... From The King Report last evening: PPI Held Hostage, Day 18 Friday was an extraordinary day. The events, news, actions and reactions gave profound insight into the markets and the psychology of major participants. Martha Stewart stock soared on the news that a verdict had been reached. WHY? Because the lemmings have been conditioned to buy impulsively and seek answers later. This action has been inculcated over the past several years and is part and parcel of Alfred E. Greenspan’s bubble. The lemmings have been conditioned to pour into something, anything, fast and then to flip out the stock. This occurs repeatedly on after-hour earnings reports. The Skinner Box-rats pour into stocks on the initial headline number without regard to whether the number is pro forma or the details of the reports are unsavory. Now, is this characteristic of a bottom of a top?...PS – Those lemmings got caned on the guilty verdict. The BoJ rigged the yen, forcing the dollar higher even though the ugly jobs report tanked the dollar versus other currencies. The BoJ forced the market to direct its fury at the euro…The surging euro ignited gold…Eurodollars had a huge rally, 15.5 points, as those that heeded the intractabulls were punished even as the intractabulls go unpunished. Just be glad they don’t trade or invest your dough. Not seasonally adjusted, 418,000 government jobs were created in February. If there is NOT a big seasonal adjustment for government job creation in February, this is very troubling. We take devilish delight in picking apart government economic statistics, especially the employment report and CPI. But an astute and long-time friend, Lacy Hunt, chief economist and strategist at Van Hoisington Management, denied us that labor but saved us much work. After the employment report was issued, Mr. Hunt called to tell us that as bad the report looked on release, the details show it’s even worse. (This has been the case as we keep preaching.) Including the lower January and December revision, 2,000 jobs have been lost the past three months. The 21k gain is attributed to government and education. 30k temporary jobs were created, which means 30k permanent jobs were lost. 588,000 workers (392k civilian) left the labor force – that how the BLS kept the 5.6% rate unchanged…Lacy says the most disturbing part of the report is ‘the index of aggregate hours worked’, the broadest measure of employment, rose only 1% annualized for January and February combined. This is a dramatic deceleration from an already meager 1.9% in Q4. The BLS reports, "Over the year, average hourly earnings increased 1.6%." Lacy notes that this is a historic deceleration of wages. Something similar occurred in 1986, but that was the year that energy states imploded as oil fell below $10 in April. CPI was -0.5% for the year and there were back-to-back quarters of negative CPI. The 1986 decline was a region event. Now, it’s a national problem. The BLS guesses that 72,000 self-employed or new business jobs were created in February. That’s the number listed under the ‘business birth/death rate’. For all the jamokes that insist that the payroll data doesn’t account for such, there’s the number. Lacy notes that for the second half of ’03, BLS overstated these jobs (revised lower after more detailed research) by 42,000. More on pages 2 & 3 Mr. Hunt notes the 65.9% labor force participation rate is the lowest since 1988 and it corresponds to a 7.4% unemployment rate…PS – Lacy says tax rebates in February were higher than forecast, which means the expected stimulus is occurring earlier than expected. It will be exhausted in two months…. (This is a "subscription" article, so no link was provided.)