As if we needed more contradictory data on the economy, this week many investors were introduced to something called the ADP National Employment Report.
In the up-is-down world of Wall Street, the report's optimistic assessment of job creation in June helped send the Dow Jones industrials down 76 points Wednesday.
The episode illustrates just how important today's definitive jobs report from the Labor Department is for the future of interest rates and the stock market.
Two days ago, most analysts were predicting a nice, Goldilocks-style gain of 170,000 jobs in June, enough to indicate economic health but not so much that the Federal Reserve would worry about inflation.
Shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday, though, Automated Data Processing Inc.'s National Employment Report changed such cozy notions with news that, by its count, private-sector employment had increased by 368,000 in June.
Bond prices immediately sank, reflecting the increased inflationary expectations. If the economy can absorb that many workers, the thinking goes, chances are pretty good that wage pressures are building and the Fed will keep raising rates.
Payroll data
Unlike the Labor Department's survey of employers, the ADP data come from payroll data on 225,000 of its corporate customers, encompassing 14 million employees.
Still, economists apparently thought the ADP data reliable enough that the consensus estimate for June job creation has risen to 200,000.
Goldman Sachs went even further, raising its forecast for today's report to 250,000 from 150,000. Goldman said ADP better predicts the Labor Department's figures than any other data economists use to forecast payrolls.
Moody's Investors Service's John Lonski found that the ADP data had overestimated payroll growth by 49 percent in the last year. Still, that average predicts 247,000 in job gains.
Less swayed
Others were less swayed.
"It is hard to believe that in the face of what was a slowdown in demand in June that corporate America suddenly embarked on the greatest hiring spree in this 5-year-old economic expansion as the ADP seemed to suggest," Merrill Lynch chief economist David Rosenberg said.
He was referring to the first time in 13 months that the employment component of the Institute for Supply Management, a survey of manufacturers, reflected fewer employers expanding payrolls than those expected to shrink them. Add to this the first upturn in layoff announcements in June.
Whatever happens, this morning's report will tell us two things: whether investors think job creation is strong enough to make the Fed tougher on interest rates, and whether we'll be hearing much more about the ADP report from here on out.
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