Sep

8

More an open question - don't have the answer…To what extent are economic figures released from gov and gov related entities are really representative of the whole eco situation in the US and Canada? Eg have a number of friends in the US who have lost their jobs in recent months in various industries - and find it hard to get back in. Of course these are all anecdotes only.

The thing I noticed about so many analysts now (also traders) is that they take everything for granted- but our world is based (at least to some extent) on smoke and mirrors.

Larry Williams responds:

For years I have heard this argument: the Gummint guys cook the books, yet their data has, indeed, reflected reality. As I see it, the Shadow Stat crowd just seeks something to prove they are right about being wrong.

Humbert H. comments:

This weekend some figures came out with a huge drop in employment of the native-born Americans and a large increase in the employment of the foreign-born. Supposedly, Bureau of Labor statistics show that 1.2 million native-born workers lost their jobs last month while the number of foreign-born workers increased by 668,000 in August. So depending on who your friends are, you can get a vastly different impression of the overall employment situation.

Steve Ellison comments:

The labor market is very much a mixed bag. The Wall Street Journal had a feature article in May about the "white-collar recession", while it appears that job openings for blue-collar and service workers are going begging.

The big tech company layoffs this year included significant numbers of H-1B visa holders. An H-1B visa holder who is laid off must find a new job within 60 days or leave the US. I read a month or so ago that 90% of the laid-off H-1B visa holders had found re-employment. That situation might be exacerbating the white-collar recession for native-born workers as even in good economic times, many companies use H-1Bs as a way to pay below-market salaries. It is easy to imagine that in a tech market glutted with job seekers, most companies choose the cut-rate H-1B holders.

I looked in the latest BLS report:

Comparing apples to apples (in thousands):
first number July - second number August
Foreign-born employed: 29728 - 30396
Foreign-born unemployed: 1142 - 1171
Native employed: 132254 - 131031
Native unemployed: 5230 - 5452

Big Al writes:

When I think of economic data, I think about how the releases affect markets. As has been posted on the list before, the question is: If you knew the number beforehand, could you trade it? How will the market react? And in today's market, there may be many black boxes programmed to trade each release in particular ways, and then adapting to the reactions to previous releases. And then one must wonder whether some players get the number faster than others.

I asked ChatGPT for examples of data breaches, and it provided these:

US Federal Reserve Lockup Breach (2020): In March 2020, it was reported that a former Federal Reserve employee and his contacts had allegedly leaked confidential economic information to a financial analyst, who then provided it to traders. This case raised concerns about the security of the Federal Reserve's data release process and led to a review of its procedures.

UK Pre-Release of Budget Information (2013): In 2013, it was discovered that some traders had gained access to the UK government's budget information a day before its official release. This breach resulted in regulatory investigations and legal actions against those involved.

Australian Bureau of Statistics Data Leak (2016): In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics had to delay the release of its employment data due to concerns about leaks. The incident highlighted the importance of maintaining data integrity and security in the release process.

European Central Bank Data Leak (2016): The European Central Bank had a data leak in 2016 when it accidentally released sensitive market-moving information to a select group of media organizations a day ahead of the official announcement. This breach raised questions about data handling procedures.

Kim Zussman adds:

NGOs too:

Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001

Eric Lindell asks:

Relative to which indicators would you say their data reflects reality? The government misdirects on so many things, why would their data be reliable? Cost projections for scientific or national security projects are not reliable. Remember when they redefined unemployment to make it drop a few points? Didn't they stop reporting M2? Didn't they lose a couple trill in the pentagon budget? Have recently reported CPI numbers reflected actual costs to consumers? From what I've seen in stores, CPI numbers seem low.

Nils Poertner answers:

exactly. Eric, or see this Gell-Mann amnesia effect. People (not just medical doctors) correctly knew about "misreporting" related to some viral infections, but then read the WSJ and think CPIs numbers are all correct.

H. Humbert comments:

My take is the labor market is just fine and doing exactly what we want to see. Labor participation is rising. Demand for workers is falling.


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  1. lon evans on September 6, 2023 12:57 am

    Official ‘revisions’ to employment figures detail that so far this year some 358,000 ‘employment gains’ are no longer considered such. Yep, better than 350,000 gains have been ‘revised’ out of existence so far.

    Don’t get me started on ‘birth/death’ analysis.

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