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In fairness, 8,000 jobs lost in a month is holding steady. Obviously they are pouncing because of Trump's promise to bring mfg jobs back, but 8,000 in a month could very well just be a fluctuation.

Is it just me, or did good jobs reports used to come in with higher numbers? 139K seems awfully low for a good report, especially given the 95K downward revision, but maybe I'm behind the times.
 
superrific said:
In fairness, 8,000 jobs lost in a month is holding steady. Obviously they are pouncing because of Trump's promise to bring mfg jobs back, but 8,000 in a month could very well just be a fluctuation.

Is it just me, or did good jobs reports used to come in with higher numbers? 139K seems awfully low for a good report, especially given the 95K downward revision, but maybe I'm behind the times.
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This is not uncommon when we're at close to full employment, which we have been for a while now.
 
lawtig02 said:
This is not uncommon when we're at close to full employment, which we have been for a while now.
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I just looked. Jan was the worst January for jobs added since 2015. Feb was the second worst. March the third worst and April also the third worst. While I don't want to do arithmetic or worry about data files, my eyeballs suggest that it's the lowest since 2015 by a fair margin. All the bad months prior to 2025 were in years surrounded by blowouts -- for instance, in 2019, the jobs created went from 250K to 6K to 230 and then 298.

Retirements can affect these numbers. I would think that retirements are up relative to ten years ago, but maybe not? The population is older now, though I don't know if there are more people at retirement age.

Note that I'm obviously excluding 2020 (though the start of that year had two months of 200K jobs created before everything crashed).
 
nycfan said:

Economists Raise Questions About Quality of U.S. Inflation Data​

Labor Department says staffing shortages reduced its ability to conduct its massive monthly survey​


🎁 —> https://www.wsj.com/economy/cpi-inf...e?st=cYzxqj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

“Some economists are beginning to question the accuracy of recent U.S. inflation data after the federal government said staffing shortages hampered its ability to conduct a massive monthly survey.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the office that publishes the inflation rate, told outside economists this week that a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month’s inflation report, which examined prices in April, government statisticians had to use a less precise method for guessing price changes more extensively than they did in the past.

Economists say the staffing shortage raises questions about the quality of recent and coming inflation reports. There is no sign of an intentional effort to publish false or misleading statistics. But any problems with the data could have major implications for the economy.

To calculate the inflation rate, hundreds of government workers called enumerators fan out across cities each month to check how much businesses are charging for products such as blue jeans and services such as accounting, often by visiting bricks-and-mortar stores. Statisticians roll those figures together into the consumer-price index, a data stream that shows how the cost of living is changing for typical Americans.

If the government’s enumerators can’t track down a specific price in a given city, they try to make an educated guess based on a close substitute: say, cargo pants instead of slacks. But in April, with fewer workers on hand to check prices, statisticians had to base their guesses on less comparable products or other regions of the country—a process called different-cell imputation—much more often than usual, according to the BLS.…”
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Dubious economic numbers coming from the Trump Administration was an easily predictable outcome…..not sure I expected it by June…..I was thinking October/November.
 
I don't want to be conspiratorial, and I understand both that a) the inflation computing processes are really hard to fake and b) the quality of the inflation data is declining because of lack of resources.

But the prices at my grocery store and local big box store have increased more than 0.3% in the past month. A lot more. So I have trouble taking this reported figure at face value.

It's possible that we're seeing a bizarre and perverse effect: inflation can't be measured for goods that have been completely priced out of the market. I can't get avocados near me (note: avocadoes are generally not USMNT compliant so the tariffs on them should still be 25%). Well, if people aren't buying avocados, they drop out of the inflation calculations. So we don't see it, even though a shortage is an even worse result than a price increase.

I'm quite sure that avocados are available elsewhere. My community is not the best market for Mexican avocados for a number of reasons. It's not as if all trade stopped. But if I can't get avocados, then y'all in NC likely have different commodities that you're finding it harder to get. Maybe not avocados.
 
IMG_7346.jpeg

I’d welcome a 100 bps drop to juice the leveraged acquisition market but I assume we will have to settle for a couple of 25 bps cuts this Fall. But maybe a surprise cut in July (or even next week)? Probably not but would be nice.
 
nycfan said:
IMG_7346.jpeg

I’d welcome a 100 bps drop to juice the leveraged acquisition market but I assume we will have to settle for a couple of 25 bps cuts this Fall. But maybe a surprise cut in July (or even next week)? Probably not but would be nice.
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We might or might not get those.

Does the leveraged acquisition market really depend that much on current interest rates? DCF analysis is supposed to average out the expected discount rate over time. I can't see how, financially speaking, it matters whether the current Fed funds rate is 4% or 3.5%. What matters is the T-bill rate going forward, and that is becoming uncoupled from the Fed.
 
superrific said:
We might or might not get those.

Does the leveraged acquisition market really depend that much on current interest rates? DCF analysis is supposed to average out the expected discount rate over time. I can't see how, financially speaking, it matters whether the current Fed funds rate is 4% or 3.5%. What matters is the T-bill rate going forward, and that is becoming uncoupled from the Fed.
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Typically the leveraged acquisition market is at a remove from the Fed rate but things have tightened up significantly and the Fed rate puts a lot of pressure on the cost of resolving ongoing defaults and the cost of bridge financing. A big drop in the Fed rate would be opening a pressure valve and hopefully unstick a lot of the potential deals sitting in limbo and clear a path to resolve some to the growing list of defaults for troubled portfolio companies.
 
nycfan said:
Typically the leveraged acquisition market is at a remove from the Fed rate but things have tightened up significantly and the Fed rate puts a lot of pressure on the cost of resolving ongoing defaults and the cost of bridge financing. A big drop in the Fed rate would be opening a pressure valve and hopefully unstick a lot of the potential deals sitting in limbo and clear a path to resolve some to the growing list of defaults for troubled portfolio companies.
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Ah, bridge financing. I forgot about that. Question answered. The rest might be of practical importance, but from abstract view, the bridge financing element wraps up the theory.
 
I’ll second the anecdotal evidence presented by super, while acknowledging the inflation numbers, on the
face, look fine.

My grocery bill is up ~10-12% since start of the year. My list is 90% fixed, so it’s relatively easy to compare, week over week. My staples, such as egg whites, almond butter, avocados, jalapeños, bananas, whole bean coffee, greens, and oil olive all up at least 10%. Maybe the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s around me aren’t representative, but my costs of living are noticeably up.

I’ve also seen an increase in the mildly used mid-market SUVs (eg top trim of CRV, lower trims of NX), ie around 3-5% since “Liberation Day”.
 
Healing said:
I’ll second the anecdotal evidence presented by super, while acknowledging the inflation numbers, on the
face, look fine.

My grocery bill is up ~10-12% since start of the year. My list is 90% fixed, so it’s relatively easy to compare, week over week. My staples, such as egg whites, almond butter, avocados, jalapeños, bananas, whole bean coffee, greens, and oil olive all up at least 10%. Maybe the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s around me aren’t representative, but my costs of living are noticeably up.

I’ve also seen an increase in the mildly used mid-market SUVs (eg top trim of CRV, lower trims of NX), ie around 3-5% since “Liberation Day”.
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You buy egg whites? Why?
 
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