Will Today's Jobs Report Be A Blowout?
Today is the best day of the month: Jobs Day!
Analysts expect around 200K new jobs, but there's a growing sense that today could be bigger - much bigger.
Writing in POLITICO's Morning Money, Ben White writes: "Recent data including the ADP payroll report suggest the jobs number could top 200,000 today (and maybe get closer to 300,000) with the unemployment rate possibly falling below 7 percent for the first time since November of 2008."
Indeed, as this table from Deutsche Bank shows, there's been a slow of data indicating that December was a very strong month for the jobs market.
Deutsche Bank
Looking specifically at the employment sub-index of the non-manufacturing ISM, it's easy to see us getting a number in the high 200s.
FRED
There are some concerns about bad December weather, but so far the evidence has been quite scant that there's been any impact at all.
Of course, a super-strong number will feed two narratives. One will be that the economy is finally (finally) starting to breakout.
The other narrative is the most interesting story in the market, and that concerns the increasing tendency of traders to question whether the Fed will really stay on hold for a long time.
We'll be covering the number LIVE at 8:30 AM ET.