One Reliable Economic Indicator Predicted Today's Great Jobs Report Months Ago

Inspire Kelly / FlickrThere's one economic indicator that signaled today's surprisingly strong jobs report.

According to Pantheon Macroeconomics' Ian Shepherdson, the nonfarm payroll data is lagging behind the NFIB survey, which collects data on small businesses, by several months.

"Technical issues aside, the key point here is that the NFIB survey - the best guide to most of the economy, most of the time - has been telling us for a while that big payroll numbers were coming ... The chart shows that the surge in payroll gains is tracking the message from the NFIB survey several months ago, and is suggests that a run of 300K-ish payrolls is now a very good bet."

The Bureau of Labor statistics reported that nonfarm payrolls grew by 321,000 last month, crushing Wall Street's expectation of 230,000. It's the biggest month-over-month gain since January 2012.

Here's a chart he included to show that the non-farm payrolls data is tracking the NFIB survey. Shepherdson is betting that the revision to today's data for November will be even stronger.