Ignore the pesky fact that 1,000,000+ people have filed for unemployment for the very first time for the 20th week in a row. The job market’s booming!
(by Half Dollar) The government’s Employment Situation Report was just released for July, 2020.
The hype has been building all week, however, which arguably began on Monday and was presented as a threat:
RECORD HIGH NASDAQ! It would all come crashing down, including your Jobs, Stocks, and 401k’s, if Sleepy Joe ever became President. China and others would own us!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2020
Good thing I don’t own any stocks or have a 401-Konfiscation!
Still, just yesterday, and despite the economic collapse, we learn that President Trump himself has personally brought back thousands of factories and millions of jobs to the United States:
President @realDonaldTrump is laying out a vision to bring thousands more factories and millions more jobs back to American soil! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3dUxpl1xjV
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 6, 2020
He’s brought back THOUSANDS of factories and MILLIONS of jobs?
That is what Trump said.
More likely, Trump is just lying as usual and duping most of the Deplorables and all of the Red Hats.
Even more vile than that, perhaps, is the false hope emanating from his lies.
Dang shame.
But I digress.
OK, “Hey Half Dollar, why are you always bashing you Trump Hater!”.
Um, I’m not a Trump Hater, and believe me, I’d rather not type those five letters if I didn’t have to, but I write about the markets and the economy, and, well, since Trump’s spewing lies about both, I suppose I’ve got to set the record straight with the facts.
The simple fact is, if you ask Trump to show you the “thousands” of factories he’s supposedly brought back, and the “millions” of jobs he’s supposedly brought back, he can’t show you them because they’re both feakin’ bold-faced lies!
And I don’t want the Deplorables or the Red Hats to have false hope, unlike Trump.
Back on track: The mainstream was looking for a gain in the millions as we can see in this example, from Econoday:
Here’s my question, because apparently I’m too dumb to understand: More than 1,000,000 people have applied for unemployment benefits for the very first time, for the last twenty weeks in a row, and yet it’s possible to have job gains in the many millions?
My inherent stupidity aside, here’s the breakdown of the official July, 2020 Jobs Report:
- Total employment rose by: 1.8 million
- Unemployment rate fell to: 10.2%
- Average hourly earnings rose by $0.07 to $29.39
- Labor force participation rate was 61.4%
Here’s more, from within the report (bold added for emphasis and commentary):
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 1.8 million in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflected the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. In July, notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, government, retail trade, professional and business services, other services, and health care.
Interestingly, I took a road trip to Washington, DC, in July, and what my own eyes saw was more like the Zombie Apocalypse with very few people around.
Said differently, my eyes didn’t see “notable job gains” in “leisure and hospitality”.
But there I go again with that you know what!
Prior to the jobs report, gold & silver were held in check throughout the night:
Silver particularly has been bouncing off of $28.
Here’s the obligatory “sell” the moment the report hit the tape:
Dips have been very shallow of late, and more like consolidations.
There is a full trading day left, however, so we’ll see how the metals end the week.
Fifteen minutes in, we see the knee-jerk reaction has been to the upside:
Developing…