The May jobs report drops Friday and financial journalists can barely contain themselves writing about what to "expect" from data that already happened. Past tense presented as future tense. The jobs were created or they weren't. People got hired or they didn't. We're not expecting a baby. We're opening an envelope that's been sealed for three weeks while pretending the suspense matters.
The summary warns us about a "reality check" coming for the stronger-than-expected job creation. Reality check. That phrase gets deployed when economists were wrong but need to sound like they saw it coming. The start of the year was strong but now maybe it wasn't actually strong or maybe it was strong but won't stay strong. Schrödinger's labor market. The jobs both exist and don't exist until a bureaucrat opens the box at 8:30 AM Eastern.
Here's what to expect: a number. Then another number explaining the first number. Then revisions to last month's number that nobody will read. Then economists on CNBC explaining why the number means the opposite of what it obviously means. Strong is weak because of inflation. Weak is strong because the Fed. Whatever the number is, someone will explain how it proves they were right all along.
Retail traders will check their phones Friday morning. See the jobs number. Panic. Buy something. Sell something. Check their portfolio at lunch. Wonder why they're down. Never make the connection that maybe, just maybe, the monthly tally of how many people got hired at Applebee's has absolutely nothing to do with their three shares of a lithium mining company they bought because someone on Reddit said it was undervalued.
The jobs report will show what it shows. Markets will move based on what algorithms decide it means. By Monday everyone will have forgotten the number. By next month the number will be revised and nobody will notice. By next year economists will still be writing previews about what to expect from data that's already collecting dust in a spreadsheet.
The only reality check is realizing you're trading your portfolio based on a press release about how many assistant managers got promoted in Topeka.
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