Time to crunch the numbers
The top forecasters according to Bloomberg's metric have thrown their dice for today.
Jim O'Sullivan - High Frequency Economics - 210k
Stephan Buu - CTI Capital - 213k
Robert Dye - Comerica - 190k
Joshua Shapiro - Maria Fiorini Ramirez - 205k
Ryan Sweet - Moody's - 205k
NFP top pickers
Here are the expectations.
BBG 180k Hi est 238k Lo 140k
Rtrs 175k Hi 210k Lo 138k
Prior 156k
Private payrolls 169k Rtrs, 175k BBG. Prior 144k
Unemployment 4.7% vs 4.7% prior
Average hourly earnings 0.3% vs 0.4% prior m/m, 2.8% vs 2.9% y/y
Average weekly hours 34.3 vs 34.3 prior
Prior participation rate 62.7
Unless we get a massive miss or beat of the payrolls number the wages will get all the attention today and their meaning for Fed hikes. Even if payrolls post a big miss, that might still be tempered by a decent jump in wages. Given how long payrolls have been posting positive numbers, we're going to have a bad one one day. If we get a fantastic number and good wages then the dollar will take off. That said, recently we've not seen massive moves in the dollar on this data. Last month was great for wages but we took an awfully long time to start really moving on it, so watch for that second wind effect.
It all happens in just over 30 minutes. Best of luck if you're trading it.
