The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 29,000 new jobs in September. Economists expected 84,000. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.2 percent.
Retail traders saw this number and immediately opened TradingView. They drew support lines. They calculated Fibonacci retracements on the unemployment rate. They posted screenshots to Discord with the caption "this changes everything." One guy in Milwaukee spent forty minutes analyzing the nonfarm payroll miss using Elliott Wave Theory before realizing he was looking at his Robinhood account balance.
The miss was 55,000 jobs. That's 65 percent below expectations. For context, 55,000 is also the number of YouTube videos explaining why this jobs report means the Fed will pivot, crash the dollar, save the dollar, trigger hyperinflation, and cause deflation. All uploaded within ninety minutes of the data release.
Technical analysts remained unfazed. The S&P 500 has support at 5,720. It has resistance at 5,750. It had support at 5,680 last week until it didn't. Then that became resistance. Then support again. The jobs number doesn't appear on any chart. Therefore it doesn't exist.
Unemployment rose from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. That's a ten basis point move. Ten basis points is also the average edge day traders think they have before commissions. They don't.
Somewhere in New Jersey, a man with three monitors and a TD Ameritrade account is explaining to his wife that the jobs report is "noise" and that his moving average crossover system is "based on math." His account is down 18 percent year-to-date. The S&P 500 is up 14 percent. He will not make the connection.
The number was 29,000 jobs. It could have been 290,000. It could have been negative 29,000. The chart looks the same on Friday.
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