Archive Category: Andrew Zatlin's Superforecast Trader Archive

What do you do after you fire everyone? That’s not a trick question. And the answer is not “play nine holes of golf,” despite what the private equity guys might tell you. The American jobs market has been struggling to answer this question all year.

I get it. On the one hand, you’ve got a jobs market that’s as strong as ever. The economy’s running on all cylinders, and all the latest economic news is great across the board. But then here I am telling you that in just a few months’ time, the US Federal Reserve is going to be forced to cut rates.

Hello, this is Matt Clark. Andrew Zatlin will be out this week, so we’re skipping our usual video and getting right down to business… Every Thursday at 8:30 a.m., the Labor Department drops a number most traders scroll past. Last week it was 196,000.

Ultimately, it’s all about the math… You take the total number of unemployed people in the country, and you divide that by the size of the overall workforce. Et voila, you have the unemployment rate. And when we evaluate the unemployment rate, there’s an underlying assumption that the second number (the size of our workforce) is going to stay relatively the same over time. People need jobs to survive, after all.

The concept of the Summer Job is alive and well here in the United States… During the sunny and sweltering months of June through September, the construction industry usually adds about 600,000 new workers who stay on through the end of the season. The hospitality industry also staffs up to handle vacationers, even lawncare businesses are booming since there’s no snow to obscure the yard.