Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...
That's what Old Wall is talking up today.
Thinking like consensus is the biggest risk right now. On today's non-farm payroll number, Old Wall is staring at the absolute number this morning, instead of the rate-of-change. Don’t forget that the US employment cycle peak was a NFP growth rate of 2.3% year-over-year in Q1 of 2015. It’s also the latest of late cycle indicators (put another way, nothing could change our bearish TREND view).
To better understand the year-over-year slowdown in NFP, here's a quick visual summary from Hedgeye U.S. Macro analyst Christian Drake. Take a look at the circled fourth line down, labelled "NFP, Y/Y," with the current reading of 1.88% versus the aforementioned peak of 2.3% in Q1 of 2015.
In other words, this is the last data point you'll see that the bulls can try to hang their hat on. It was a nice ride. It's over.
The S&P 500 appears to be shrugging off the NFP number today anyway. Remember, the US stock market has never NOT crashed (i.e. a 20% or more decline from peak – that would get you 1704 SPX from the 2130 #bubble high) when corporate profits go negative for 2 consecutive quarters. We’ll have that in earnings season that starts next week.
Just look at the chart...
That's why JPMorgan's (JPM) earnings are way more important to me than this today's jobs report.
You won't hear that from anyone on Wall Street though.
