Central banks around the world are holding interest rates at current levels, presumably waiting for the other shoe to drop in the U.S. economy. Perhaps this next item was it…
The August jobs report was released this morning… and it was a shocker. August nonfarm payroll jobs fell 4,000, said the Labor Department this morning -- the first negative reading in four years.
The bureau also revised July jobs down, from 92,000 to 68,000. Jobs in most sectors were down… manufacturing, construction and government jobs took the biggest hits.
If you had the pleasure of watching CNBC this morning while these statistics were released, you would have seen faces of genuine shock and panic. Traders reporting from the floor were all smiles until 8:30... a consensus of economists and Wall Street types predicted a rise of 100,000 jobs before this morning’s report. Ouch… that’s a big miss. We’ve heard the word “recession” at least 100 times since then.
Where did they think all the carcasses from the housing slowdown were getting piled up?
The first shoe is still doing plenty of damage itself. The rate of foreclosures jumped to record highs in the second quarter of 2007, said the Mortgage Bankers Association yesterday.
This marks the third straight quarter in which this benchmark rose to record levels. You should recall the various ARM resetting charts we’ve displayed in these pages… the worst is yet to come.
Second-quarter mortgage delinquencies also rose dramatically… at 5.1% delinquency. American homeowners haven’t struggled to pay their mortgages this much since June 2002.
In light of the job report, the likelihood of a September rate cut from the Fed just rose to match the probability of Lindsay Lohan going back into rehab. Some talking heads on the boob tube predict as much as a 1% cut… yikes. We don’t think so… for the time being, Bernanke and his bespectacled brothers still have one collective eye on inflation.
The August jobs report was released this morning… and it was a shocker. August nonfarm payroll jobs fell 4,000, said the Labor Department this morning -- the first negative reading in four years.
The bureau also revised July jobs down, from 92,000 to 68,000. Jobs in most sectors were down… manufacturing, construction and government jobs took the biggest hits.
If you had the pleasure of watching CNBC this morning while these statistics were released, you would have seen faces of genuine shock and panic. Traders reporting from the floor were all smiles until 8:30... a consensus of economists and Wall Street types predicted a rise of 100,000 jobs before this morning’s report. Ouch… that’s a big miss. We’ve heard the word “recession” at least 100 times since then.
Where did they think all the carcasses from the housing slowdown were getting piled up?
The first shoe is still doing plenty of damage itself. The rate of foreclosures jumped to record highs in the second quarter of 2007, said the Mortgage Bankers Association yesterday.
This marks the third straight quarter in which this benchmark rose to record levels. You should recall the various ARM resetting charts we’ve displayed in these pages… the worst is yet to come.
Second-quarter mortgage delinquencies also rose dramatically… at 5.1% delinquency. American homeowners haven’t struggled to pay their mortgages this much since June 2002.
In light of the job report, the likelihood of a September rate cut from the Fed just rose to match the probability of Lindsay Lohan going back into rehab. Some talking heads on the boob tube predict as much as a 1% cut… yikes. We don’t think so… for the time being, Bernanke and his bespectacled brothers still have one collective eye on inflation.
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