Jim Sinclair writes .......................The Case of the Misleading Labor Figures - (Part of a Mini-Series)
Author: Jim Sinclair
This important comment on Friday’s Labor figures has received scant coverage. It is important to the Gold Community and elsewhere that this situation be clarified. Those who were selling both gold and gold shares into the market, chasing prices lower in a disorderly and undisciplined fashion, acted on bad and misleading information.
To see people throwing their good gold shares into whatever bids existed made no sense then and now looks totally nuts. Selling weakness is silly enough but throwing shares onto the market and leaving your broker determine the price was an act of self destruction and total madness.
There is no question in my mind that every sound gold share hammered on Friday will sell in a short time not only higher than their recent highs but higher by orders of magnitude.
It would be better for everyone if those that acted in this uniformed and undisciplined manner would simply stay out of gold because they have no understanding of what they are doing or how it should be done.
They are financial firecrackers with short fuses looking like accidents waiting to happen not only to themselves but to everyone around them. Gold requires discipline and understanding.
Word has it that quiet, careful and generally right Monty Guild was a major buyer in many of those leading gold shares being sold off on Friday. Way to go Monty!
Posting this article and my comments on all gold web sites and chat boards by our the MineSet Community will bring clarification to those who bought into the incorrect thesis that a buoyant and long term economic recovery was proven by the skewed figures out of the Labor Department.
There are many good gold people out there that are having an uncomfortable weekend without reason. So help them out by spreading the word on these misleading economic figures.
Reuters
Data revision confirms WEAK U.S. jobs picture
Friday October 3, 2:47 pm ET
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A warning by the U.S. Labor Department that it expects to revise down past employment data pours cold water on the view of some economists who believed the jobs market had been improving for some time, analysts said on Friday.
Statisticians at the Labor Department said they expect to revise down U.S. payroll employment by about 145,000 for the March 2003 reference month -- effectively showing even greater weakness in the sluggish labor market than previously thought.
The downward adjustment surprised Wall Street, which had been rife with speculation this week that Labor would adjust the figures up, bringing payrolls more in line with another survey which has shown a recent improvement in the job market.
"The expectation was that this revision would be positive, that we would be looking at a number in excess of 300,000," said Anthony Chan, chief economist at Banc One Investment Advisors.
An upward revision would have brought the so-called establishment survey, a poll of businesses that has shown a loss of 1.0 million jobs since the recession ended in November 2001, more in line with a smaller household survey of employment which has shown a 1.4 million job gain.
Both surveys are part of the department's closely watched monthly employment report. Markets tend to focus on the payrolls count from the establishment survey, while the unemployment rate is derived from the household survey.
The discrepancy between the two surveys has been a hot topic of late, even though veteran economists believe much of the discrepancy can be explained away by differences between the methods used in the two surveys and monthly volatility.
Chan, who believes the larger establishment survey provides a more accurate picture of the job market, said the downward revision douses the argument that Labor was underestimating the job recovery with its establishment survey.
"That gives more credence to the view that the weakness in the establishment non-farm payrolls is real," Chan said.
James Glassman, senior U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan Chase Securities in New York, said the revision is equivalent to about 12,000 fewer jobs a month than originally thought in the March 2002 to March 2003 period.
"Whichever survey you look at, employment has been pretty flat in the last two years, and there is no mystery why -- the economy has not grown (fast enough)," said Glassman.
Like many economists, he argues the discrepancies between the two surveys can be largely explained by the different methods used. Unlike the establishment survey, the household survey includes farm workers, the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers and people on unpaid leave among the employed, possibly boosting its count.
"When you make adjustments to compare apples to apples, the differences between the two surveys are really quite small," Glassman said.
The so-called "benchmark revision" is an annual exercise by the Labor Department, designed to adjust historical data using more exact records that have come in since the preliminary results were released.
The benchmark change will be instituted when a final measure of the revision is revealed in February. In the past, it had taken the department until June to make the changes.
Labor said the 0.1 percent adjustment this year was small by historical standards, with benchmark revisions averaging 0.3 percent in the past 10 years."