BLS Labor reports +3

09:13 02-Oct-26


Welcome to the fourth quarter.  The government jobs headline came in at +29K when +84K was expected.  The unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, which is a surprise, given the frozen job market that Warsh thinks is a good thing.  Moreover, earnings rose just 0.1% versus forecasts for +0.3%.  The Participation Rate and Employment Population ratio both rose 0.2% and 0.1% respectively to 61.6% and 59.1%.

American equity futures were already positive and they are rising further as markets see this as another reason for the Fed to hold.  Fedwatch already had the chances for that at the end of the month at over 3 out of 4.  They are over 86% now.  However, treasury rates will remain the thing to watch going forward.  They topped 5.3% for the ten-year T-Note and 5.65% for the 30-year bonds yesterday, but are remaining well below that so far.  Market fears of them returning to historical levels of 7% or more seem completely justified, which would eventually force big budget cuts and/or tax hikes, given the levels of government debt and deficit that our parent CrowdWisers service has documented.  Accordingly, that service will once again track next week's 10 and 30 year treasury auctions.