U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index toward its longest weekly rally in a year, as employment growth topped estimates and the jobless rate unexpectedly declined to 8.3 percent.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) and FedEx Corp. (FDX) rallied at least 1.2 percent to pace gains among companies most- dependent on economic growth. Alcoa Inc. (AA) and Halliburton Co. (HAL) added more than 1 percent as commodity producers advanced. Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) rose 4.1 percent as the meat processor’s profit beat estimates. Gilead Sciences Inc. surged 8.6 percent on positive data from an experimental hepatitis C drug.
The S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent to 1,337.56 at 9:39 a.m. in New York. It has climbed 1.6 percent since Jan. 27, poised for a fifth straight weeklyincrease. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 106.91 points, or 0.8 percent, to 12,812.32 today, its highest level since May 2008 on a closing basis.
“Spectacular,” Ron Florance, managing director of investment strategy for Wells Fargo Private Bank, said in a telephone interview. His firm manages $169 billion. “It’s a very, very strong jobs number. It shows that companies have confidence that they see global demand growth through their products and services. The numbers indicate continued economic strength. That will support risk assets.”
The 243,000 increase in payrolls was the most since April and exceeded all forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, Labor Department figures showed. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest since February 2009. The median projection in the Bloomberg survey called for a rise of 140,000 payrolls after an initially reported 200,000 gain in December.
Earnings Outlook
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/u-s-stock-futures-fluctuate-before-reports-on-payrolls-unemployment-rate.html
Bernanke Won’t Tolerate Inflation to Boost Jobs
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke defended the central bank’s newly established price goal and rejected suggestions he was prepared to allow higher inflation to create jobs.
“We are not seeking higher inflation,” Bernanke said yesterday in response to questioning from Republican Representative Paul Ryan ofWisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee. “We do not want higher inflation and we’re not tolerating higher inflation.”
Bernanke replied to Ryan’s suggestion that the Fed might be prepared to allow inflation to exceed its goal to fulfill the second part of its congressional mandate, which is to promote maximum employment. The Fed last week set a 2 percent annual inflation goal after saying that it would keep its benchmark interest rate low for longer to boost the economy and push down unemployment.
Ryan, who has supported legislation to have the Fed focus solely on stable prices, said in opening remarks he was “greatly concerned to hear the Fed recently announce that it would be willing to accept higher-than-desired inflation in order to focus on the other side of its dual mandate.”
The hearing came one day before a report from the Labor Department that’s forecast to show that the jobless rate stayed at 8.5 percent in January, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Employers probably added 140,000 jobs to payrolls, down from an increase of 200,000 in December, according to the survey.
31 comments:
Good morning everyone. PMs in the tank but everything else is rainbows and unicorns. Earnings up, UE down, Manufacturing orders up. If you look closely at the coins at the top it is not an ad, but a satire pic sent to me by Mammoth.
Now this is no surprise to me and just another reason not to buy Facebook.
No Women on Facebook Board Shows Disconnect
There is something ironic in seeing the Gold & Silver images placed above their respective charts, when those charts are trending downwards.
Also, Miss Walking Liberty appears tobe reaching for Goldilock's bouquet.
but, but...the unemployment numbers were GREAT!! HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN.
Now, I have to admit that I'm growing tired of the 'gloom and doom'...especially by blogs/commentators who refuse to consider ANY other opinion but THEIRS (NOT Queenbee or Hive, mind you ;-)
Still, I find the numbers worrying. How can you have these kinds of numbers YET speak to ordinary people and get such a different take on the economy and what is happening?
Does anyone have any ideas? I mean, other than aliens running the Congress or conspiracy theories? While I HATED statistics as a class in college, I did learn enough to know that numbers don't lie. I DO, however, remember my dad preaching that it iHUMANS can arrange ideas/numbers to their own advantage.
The unemployment report was a complete crock of shyte. Unfortunately, we serfs in America know better. The mini Depression is still with us, and will be for some time, despite all of the number massaging.
To continue my 'questions of the day', how many workers are being switched from full-time to part-time? Is that in any way influenced by the rising cost of health insurance? (It sure seems to be at Lowes and J.C. Penny according to first-hand knowledge of people we know who have worked/work there.) Lowes will hire part-timers for the spring/summer season and then lay off in mid-July (at least, that was typical in past seasons).
Chicken Little, Do you think anyone with a bit of intelligence isn't aware that the official unemployment figures are B.S.?
The silver lining to this dark cloud is people are finally waking up to the reality of what is happening.
And awareness of a problem is the first step on the road to fixing the problem.
Well it isn't all bad for women at FB and Mr K I agree the UE numbers are BS and always have been. You have to look at the U-6 to even come close.
"The board’s makeup is surprising considering Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is an outspoken advocate for gender equality, said Malli Gero, executive director of 2020 Women on Boards. The public face of the Menlo Park, California-based company, Sandberg, 42, is Facebook’s best-paid senior executive, receiving $30.9 million in compensation last year. She may own up to 1.7 percent of the company after the IPO, and at the top end of the valuation range expected for the offering, her stake may be worth $1.7 billion."
Poor girl, However will she be able to make ends meet? She is probably driven in a bulletproof limo with a bodyguard and access to the corporate jets. Notice I use the plural and they probably own several.
Even though some Americans struggle to put gas in their ten year old beater, food on the table and reasonable healthcare, we can all aspire to be filthy rich like her. It's the American Dream, but as George Carlin said "you have to be asleep to believe it.
I did that on purpose Mammoth, but I didn't notice the reaching for the bouquet.
I didn't read the blog roll today, but Mr K's Mean Old Investor has a new post about the UE numbers so give the man some hits and a comment or two. I have to take Yvonne to the doctor soon so I will get back to his blog later.
You all know I hate BAC and the lead story is about how it bounced up 4.5% today. Of course the brings the stock of these parasites to 7.80. A year ago it was selling for 15.00. A real success story.
The disconnect from reality among the people and the pundits is astounding.
Not to be a purveypr of gloom, CL, but you know how the "unemployment rate" dropped, right? Because 1.2 million people were vaporized from the "pool of eligible workers." Fewer people looking for work -- if you believe the official story -- lower unemployment rate!
And those 234,000 jobs created? I have not bothered to read anything that drilled down into what and how those jobs came about -- maybe I'll check Mish; he does a good job analyzing that -- but Jesse of Le Cafe Americain said it was fakery based on jiggering the "Birth/Death model."
Re: Fakebook -- I just have to sputter about this somewhere. At work, people were chattering about the IPO. In the morning meeting where the psychiatrists sit around discussing the patients, they were mentioning how many shares Bono of U-2 apparently has, and how he'll be even more of a millionaire because of it, so maybe (they said sarcastically) he'll be able to cure world hunger... There were a couple other comments indicating they had been thinking about this. There were three medical doctors in the room, and three college-educated nurses (aside from me.)
I mentioned the .dotcom bubble twice. The first time, it was like no one even ehard me. The second time, when I expounded a bit on scams, and how Fake book has no revenue stream, and mentioned the Groupon IPO which as dropped below its initial offering price, I might as well have been talking about price changes for sacks of red lentils in Punjab, for all the impression it made on them. Nobody said they were planning on buying any Fakebook, but they still see it as an exciting, buzzy, shiny thing. Highly educated people, who were full-grown when the tech bubble blew up. The ignorance of people, their inability to understand what the fcuk is going on, is ASTOUNDING!
Hey Mammoth! (And if QB has any lurker readers in the Vancouver area) We're having a house party Saturday and Stoneleigh of The Automatic Earth is going to be speaking. A bunch of the preppers/doomers in town are going to be there, pretty smart people. Unlike the doctors in my comment above. You'd fit right in with this crowd, Mammoth.
Stoneleigh is in town on a speaking tour, and she leaves for Australia Sunday. Going to spend six months there, she says. First stop Brisbane! She's couch-sirfing across the world, and we're going to drive her to the airport Sunday. You gotta check her out in person, Shaza. She's hella-smart, and comes across as optimistic, in spite of the deflationary Peak Oil gloom message she preaches.
Bukko, sounds interesting! if only I were lurking in Vancouver! ;(
I do not like the high volume of selling on GLD. I bought not long ago, if Mr Mrket stops me out, so be it! But this looks a little like more than a pull back due to the volume on the sell side.when GLD takes a break, vol is usually low on pull back...so gold paper holders, watch those stops!
maybe pick up a little gold hedge, which I should have done before this post! OOPS! happens to us all..
Biotech and pharma are my best stocks YTD...
CL, to keep on with the piling-on about the "unemployment" numbers, ZeroHedge has been all over the issue. I don't know if you read ZH. The site is a bit "inside baseball" for most, and I only understand half of what's on there. The posts have a nasty tone, and the commenters are revolting. If you have five minutes, that guy Biderman, one of whose videos QB posted last week, calls BS on the stats in this YouTube. He breaks it down in simple terms why the "unemployment number" is a lie.
My problem is "Who to believe?" I expect the .gov to be lying, although I'm disappointed to see how the Hopey Administration is even fakier than realPresident Cheney was. But I riposted on what I saw as Biderman's dissimulation in that thing QB had. It's so hard to pick the corn kernels of the truth from the horse sh!t that everyone is dumping.
I supose that not 100% of everything everybody says is a lie. It seems like there's more spin and less validity in things nowdays. But then again, in the old days when there was more of an accepted varion of what The Truth was, perhaps that was just because a majority of people bought into the popular lies. Natives and black folks probably saw the B.S. in the story of America's glorious history, for example.
Perhaps now with the Internet, we have a true freedom of the press, not just limited to those who could afford the printing machinery and cpuld buy ink by the barrel. The real truth is out there, but you might have to get a bit of it from Column A, and another bit from Column B...
And that is why, when the clampdown gets harder, TPTB will have to shut down the Internet. The truth is a dangerous thing, my friends.
Bukko, sounds interesting! if only I were lurking in Vancouver!
I don't know what Stoneleigh's schedule will be in Australia, Shaza, because they haven't updated the lecture link on their website recently. However, I'm sure she will be appearing around Harbourtown if you're still there. She lands in Brissie Tuesday, after a flight in via Fiji. Her writing partner Ilargi, a tall, gruff Dutchman, will also be gallivanting around Oz with her. Assuming he does not wig out and get arrested on the flight he's taking separately from Europe. He apparently is claustrophobic and resolves it by getting massively pissed if he has to take a plane.
I cannot recommend her talks highly enough. She's quite intelligent on finance, a la Steve Keen and Satayajit Das, but she also discusses energy issues, the environment, human behaviour such as the tendency of people to act in herd-like fashion... All this coming from a zaftig blonde woman who retains traces of the British accent of her birth. Even someone at your intellectual level could learn something from her, so I hope you get a chance to catch one of her talks. If you do, tell her Buck in Vancouver sent you!
bukko-I don't read Zero Hedge as a rule. In fact, I am becoming more and more disillusioned with lots of stuff on the net. Having learned 'reporting' when it was once a semi-admirable job, I see semantics, photoshop, rumors, and statistics forged by not just the government but those proclaiming the eradication of powers.
I am cynical to the extreme and fall under the old X-Files 'TRUST NO ONE' more often than not. It seems to me that we are living in a time of internet 'anarchy'. Whether you agree with the principles expounded by certain groups or not, we should be living by the law. Once popularity becomes the refuge of power we are in even more danger of resorting to mob mentality.
That worries me on many levels for corruption has this nasty habit of showing up everywhere. I have been reading Jesse's timely reminder of THE WHITE ROSE during the past week. I'd done research on this awhile back. It would behoove us to remember the past...especially now.
Bukko might I suggest you set up a Skype session with so that we can all listen in and ask questions without flying to Vancouver?
I do not like the high volume of selling on GLD.'
Yes, I noticed that, too. Not a great sign. It was the most oversold it's been for 6 months, so some type of pullback was statistically in the offing, but a bit of a nasty candle. Would be good to see it hold the 50 day ma (in US dollar terms).
btw, I'm not trading it.
overbought, not oversold ...
Bukko might I suggest you set up a Skype session with so that we can all listen in and ask questions without flying to Vancouver?
Y'know, that's actually possible. I forget what our Skype handle is. You know how it is when something pops up automatically, and you no longer recall how to type it in manually. When I get home (which will be about 11 p.m. your time) I'll look up your e-mail address on our home 'puter and send you the Skype details. I don't know if she's going to be giving a talk or just hanging out for the potluck. It would be cool if you Skyped in and asked a question! Think of a good 'un. Stoneleigh would like that. That's the kind of a person she is. At her talk on Thursday, she said one of her goals is to meet as many readers around the world as she can. She'd probably find it interesting that you are an economics blogger who's been a victim of the contracting economy and are living in one of the bubble states.
I would agree the uranium miners were oversold, and the whole sector was punished too much after the Japanese disaster.
However, the price is the price, and anyone who had uranium miners last Fall or early Winter should have set a stop and seen it hit, getting them out before prices collapsed too far.
Logic and reversion to the mean suggest there is probably a good trader there, after such a beatdown. However, I have not looked at the charts for uranium miners of late, just working too many hours at my day job, so I can't give any advice there either way.
NYT: "FLOYD NORRIS How many jobs did the American economy add in January?
The Labor Department estimated on Friday that the economy gained 243,000 jobs. The department also estimated that the economy lost 2,689,000 jobs in the month.
The difference in the two numbers is in seasonal adjustment. Employment always falls in January, as temporary Christmas jobs end.
So the government applies seasonal adjustment factors in an effort to discern the real trend of the economy apart from seasonal fluctuations. The actual survey showed the big loss in jobs. The seasonal adjustments produced the reported gain of 243,000 jobs.
A reason to doubt the number is that there has been a tendency in this cycle for the seasonal factors to overstate moves, in both directions. Labor mobility is down, as fewer workers quit to seek better jobs and employers both hire and fire fewer people than they used to do. If the seasonal adjustment was too large, then the gain should be smaller."
Pretty good explanation, but forgets the unspoken agreement that they are always optimistic on every projection."
KD is not so convinced: "This is not a strong report folks, and in fact documents an actual and ongoing collapse in the US labor force, despite the crooning on the mainstream media disinformation channels!"
Good dissection of the numbers there:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=201459
Opinions ranged from wildly BUllISh on the MSM to highly negative on the Blogs.
Planet Wall St has little to do with such frivolities as looking at the real facts, which is that the long term jobs picture is not that great for America.
However, all is not lost yet:
It seems Attorney General of NY has today thrown a rather large wrench into the Bankster gears, we'll see if it sticks. The evidence I think is overwhelming, and well documented. They did break the law in inumerable ways:
Woohoo! Break out the party hats! Drinks all around!
Bit of a bombshell there the MSM failed to notice.
Details of the suit are a bit disappointing, they can pay a $5K finer per offense and carry on, which is absurd, given the size of the economic damage incurred from the Bankster induced housing bubble and the creation of MERS.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/schneiderman-files-civil-fraud-lawsuit-against-three-major-banks-for-use-of-mers.html
The real big money is in the settlement of the claims of those who bought the MBS based on MERS, whose legality is now called into question here, as they are governed under NY law in most cases. I am not sure, but I think the follow through lawsuit threat is now enormous for the Banksters here, if everyone joins the party.
Every State and County should sue them, for the same reasons, and to collect on behalf of taxpayers the court record fees that the Banksters tried to avoid by the creation of MERS. It was all about saving money, that fee at the courthouse was just too inconvenient.
Americans complain about $4 gas, while in Europe:
ZH: "Tyler Durden's picture
Europe Celebrates Its Latest Recession With Record High Gas Prices"
"Belgium's Beursduivel notes that the national average price for a liter of petrol (gas) has reached a Euro-zone record high of EUR1.76 which equates to a US (not imperial) gallon cost of (drum roll please) USD8.75 (given current EURUSD levels)."
Does act as a drag on the economy to some extent. Gasoline sales will drop as unemployment rises though.
If there is an oil shock and it goes to $150-$200, you can double today's prices, and a Depressionary wave.
You guys are right, there is almost no one to trust.
Personally, I trust no one, not even myself. (joke alert)
"Finally, Biderman wonders whether the BLS is being pressured during an election year to paint an overly optimistic picture by President Obama’s administration in light of these 'real unadjusted job change' facts. Frankly, in light of recent discoveries about the other "impartial" organization, the CBO, we don't think there is any need to wonder at all."
Indeed. When you know your Government is based on total lies, from the top down, it does have a negative effect on society as a whole. A reverse integrity effect. Call it 'The Mass Corruption Effect'.
Don't confuse it with the great sci-fi video game series 'Mass Effect' btw
Zero Hedge has a negative bias for sure, the truth lies somewhere in the middle on most issues after all, and they tend to lean a bit Bearish on everything.
But you have to read it as the flip side to the MSM spin. Which is pervasive on their sites, to a nauseating degree. ZH usually is funnier, in any event. The MSM are over staffed with pompous twits.
There is also some very good analysis there, and some of the worst comments every posted on the net. What you call a wide range of viewpoints. ZH has now grown so popular that they are quoted on live TV, which only makes their voice louder.
You have to draw your own conclusions.
Me, I agree with the Bearish scenarios in most cases, stated on many Blogs etc, as their simple math does not lie, and we are in the bursting of a 30 year credit bubble. But that has almost nothing to do with markets a lot of the time, a fact which confuses many people.
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