May Non-Farm Payrolls numbers are in at 54k, a HUGE miss, as consensus was 165,000 (and consensus 5 days ago was closer to 200,000. Perhaps even bigger news, that 54k total included a BS B/D adjustment of 206,000 jobs! Which means the economy ACTUALLY LOST 152,000 jobs in May!
This is the largest B/D fudge in over a year, and frankly, we're confused by it. Did someone miss the message that The Bernank needs as bad of an unemployment report as he can get to justify QE3? QE2 is scheduled to run out in just 26 days after-all.
