"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals."
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Sc 2
The Non-Farm Payrolls Report came in to the high side this morning with a headline number of 175,000 jobs added.
Stocks did a three step zig zag and then tended to sell off, with a recovery to unchanged in the afternoon, except for the real world heavy NASDAQ 100, which put a second day into the red.
How come? I think it was because once you dug into the details of the report things were a bit disjointed, with unemployment rising, and the average work week declining, in spite of the 'better than expected' jobs increase. The seasonality and birth-death model seemed a bit dodgy from my spreadsheet, but who am I to judge?
Have a pleasant weekend.
