Unemployment: As Bad As We Thought…
Friday, August 1st, 2008
While it’s no surprise that unemployment continues to plague the US economy - we certainly don’t need more data to confirm the situation. However, in this market even bad news that’s as bad as analysts expect (and not worse) could be good news. That might just be the case with US unemployment data just released this morning.
July nonfarm payrolls fell by 51,000 and the rate of unemployment grew slightly to 5.7% (vs. 5.5% in June). While this is the highest rate in 4 years, at least it wasn’t as bad as the market was expecting - Dow futures are up ahead of the market open. Hey, I’m trying to look on the bright side of things here.