Time to revise the US economic calendar as the The Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t release the January jobs report as scheduled on Friday because of the government shutdown.
Politicians say they will vote to end the shutdown on Tuesday so the market isn't too fussed but this is annoying.
Tuesday's JOLTS report has also been postponed.
No other country does this nonsense and it's not conductive to smooth capital markets. For a country that talks about de-regulation and making it easier for business' to work, this is yet-another black eye. Putting together economic data is a trivial cost in the grand scheme of things and blowing up the NFP report in the autumn wrecks statistical continuity. Worse yet, Trump fired the head of the BLS and that raises some major questions about bias, either explicit or subconscious.
The Fed is at a tough juncture where it's trying to make some difficult judgments about growth, employment and inflation. Now it's flying blind once again.
In all likelihood this will be a short shutdown but this happens time after time and creates uncertainty everywhere. It's an unwelcome dynamic, that's at the very least a headache.
That this happens on Groundhog Day is a beautiful dose of irony, as it keeps happening over and over.
