Today, we are expecting a very noisy, very funky NFP report. That is what the “N” and the “F” stand for in this NFP report: Noisy & Funky

Last month, we noted how much the Census data was skewing employment reports. The Labor Department had hired ~417,000 more census workers, and that was skewing the numbers. We even said you could see a crazy number, as high as ~700k ^[1], and you should ignore it.

The next few months is the unwind of the census hiring. Bloomberg’s survey of economists had a median estimate of a payroll declined of 130,000 in June. Ignore that as well.

Given all the noise, these estimates are little more than a wild-assed guesses. The reporting week for NFP does not fit in precisely with the Census layoffs, and so we could see a payroll report plus or minus 250k around that number. Anything between plus 100k new jobs and minus 400k should not surprise traders (but probably will).

One last trader’s caveat: Expectations for this report have been continually ratcheted down this month. Whisper numbers are for an awful data point. Hence, anything less than horrible number could spark a relief rally.

Its all about the noise . . .

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BLS release at 8:30am ^[2]