Today's jobs report from the U.S. government presents a Rorschach test for investors and the public. While unemployment did fall -- to 5.1% according to the report -- employment gains in August were the smallest in five months.
Such data make it hard to tell in which the direction the economy is going. However, with such weak growth in August this is certainly no time for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, unless they want to make some sort of statement and at the same time throw people out of work.
While the stock markets are highly overrated as barometers of the economy, they do present an indicator of public confidence in the whole profit system. When the market falls precipitously it does tend to represent a loss in confidence which has already occurred among people at large. Thus the markets continue to merit close watching over the next several business days.
Source: Data via MarketWatch, September 4, 2015
Such data make it hard to tell in which the direction the economy is going. However, with such weak growth in August this is certainly no time for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, unless they want to make some sort of statement and at the same time throw people out of work.
While the stock markets are highly overrated as barometers of the economy, they do present an indicator of public confidence in the whole profit system. When the market falls precipitously it does tend to represent a loss in confidence which has already occurred among people at large. Thus the markets continue to merit close watching over the next several business days.
Source: Data via MarketWatch, September 4, 2015
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