Short rant. Jobs report was announced today. Economy added jobs. Media says we didn’t meet expectations. Every writer and journalist added their own spin on the missed expectations (See short list of news stories below) and therefore causing a slight turmoil within the market. Sounds about the status-qua now. The thing about jobs reports, there isn’t very much to look into on any one specific job report as it takes time for economies to show change. They need to be reviewed across a large frame of time. The jobs report is actually one of the places were the numbers from the past are revised to be more accurate. If you read this months report, you’ll see that the last two jobs reports have been amended, both with lower jobless rate claims. Media says nothing of this.
Our media in their relentless pursuit of the truth will likely never be satisfied with the results. In fact, I don’t ever remember having the media and the economists meeting with any sort of mutual understanding of one another. Will we ever meet their expectations? I realize investors use the jobs data to further predict the market behavior but the media has no business speculating. Are they reporting on investor attitude or are they reporting the jobs information? I’m skeptical the media even bothers to make predictions or have expectations. What would they expect? Make more money? They seem to just react the same way regardless of the report being given. They call fire. If you were to skim headlines and take the media at their word, you would miss the inclusion of the previous jobs reports amendments, noted above. For future jobs reports, please, just take whatever news you hear and notch it down a couple degrees. It will serve you much better and will probably be as accurate as the news reports or just read the report yourself.