Ok, so at 8:30 this morning Q2 productivity for non-farm labor was released and it printed at -0.3%, seriously better than the anticipated -0.9% target, except for one little hiccup, the number for Q1 was revised slightly, you seen a few weeks ago BLS released Q1 productivity to be +1.8%, a decent number that shows an economy still growing well, you see the revision was rather large from +1.8% to -0.6%, a 150% movement, but that's ok right? Well it means that the first half productivity is not up at least 0.9% (with the fall off in Q2) rather its down a staggering 0.9%, literally 1.8% below Q1 target. It means that the economy is slowing fast in Q1 -- even faster than the GDP Q1 forecast revision of +1.8% to -0.3% implied.
Now many in the market "hang on" these daily/weekly states to determine the "direction" of the market (not only financial but also the underlying economy). Well it turns out that all that stuff is complete and utter B.S. because there is a rather important between growth and contraction. It makes one wonder as to the logic of releasing early (and often very wrong) numbers. Moreover, a revision of 2.4% over a quarter says something very serious about the quality of the data.
Now many in the market "hang on" these daily/weekly states to determine the "direction" of the market (not only financial but also the underlying economy). Well it turns out that all that stuff is complete and utter B.S. because there is a rather important between growth and contraction. It makes one wonder as to the logic of releasing early (and often very wrong) numbers. Moreover, a revision of 2.4% over a quarter says something very serious about the quality of the data.