Private payrolls rose by 38,000 in August. That's the smallest gain since January. ADP reported this like it mattered.
Thirty-eight thousand jobs. In a country of 330 million people. That's a rounding error on a rounding error. That's statistical noise wearing a press release. Some analyst at a mid-tier bank got paid six figures to tell CNBC this number means the labor market is "softening." The labor market isn't softening. The labor market is doing whatever the f*ck it was going to do regardless of whether ADP measured it.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately checked their portfolios. They wondered if 38,000 was bullish or bearish. They pulled up their candlestick charts. They drew trend lines connecting three random points. They convinced themselves this changed something about their position in a leveraged ETF they don't understand. It changed nothing.
The report was less than expected. Less than what? Less than the consensus estimate compiled by economists who have been wrong about every major economic turning point in the last two decades. These are the same people who didn't see 2008 coming. The same people who called inflation transitory. The same people who thought the labor market would collapse in 2023. Their expectations are worthless.
August had the smallest gain since January. January had whatever gain January had. Nobody remembers. Nobody cared then either. This is just a different number in a different month that will be revised twice before anyone notices and then forgotten completely.
Somewhere right now a day trader is explaining to his wife that he had to liquidate their son's college fund because ADP missed expectations by 110,000 jobs and that obviously means the Fed will cut rates by 50 basis points which means tech stocks will moon which means his 0DTE SPY calls were actually a responsible hedge against inflation.
His wife is filing the paperwork.
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