What The Media Missed About Today's Jobs Report

03/04/16 09:58AM EST

What The Media Missed About Today's Jobs Report - jobslatecycle

NEWSFLASH: Today's jobs report, with payroll employment increasing by 242,000 in February and the unemployment rate steady at 4.9%, isn't as rosy as the media or Wall Street is painting it.

"Anything sub-270K in February = further slowing in employment growth (Feb = hardest comp of the cycle)," Hedgeye US Macro analyst Christian Drake wrote this morning. And, as Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough points out, the rate of change peak in non-farm payroll growth peaked in February of last year at 2.34% year-over-year.

Today's print? 1.9% 

Here's the key chart (click to enlarge)

What The Media Missed About Today's Jobs Report - Employment Growth

... And a more granular breakdown (click to enlarge):

What The Media Missed About Today's Jobs Report - employment summary

Why is this bad for the stock market? "This will keep the Fed hawkish and make it more likely that they continue to hike into an economic slowdown," McCullough reiterated on The Macro Show this morning. 

https://twitter.com/KeithMcCullough/status/705748687981391872

Bottom line: If the Fed continues to hike rates into an economic slowdown, it's going to get ugly. That's the real risk right now.

© 2024 Hedgeye Risk Management, LLC. The information contained herein is the property of Hedgeye, which reserves all rights thereto. Redistribution of any part of this information is prohibited without the express written consent of Hedgeye. Hedgeye is not responsible for any errors in or omissions to this information, or for any consequences that may result from the use of this information.