The U.S. economy lost 85,000 jobs in December. This was much worse than the 10,000 gain analysts were expecting. The unemployment rate stayed at 10%. Interestingly though, we do mark the first gains in jobs as November was revised higher to +4,000.
Stock futures are down on the news, but this could be an inverse knee jerk reaction from what we saw last month when the futures spiked in the morning on the big beat and then sold off all day. Instead, the implications here are more interesting. The Fed is likely to keep rates low and the government will be pressured to implement more stimulus. In other words, this doesn’t necessarily mean the market is going lower following this report as easy money will continue to flood markets.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
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