ADP Employment
This morning’s first economic release was September's ADP Employment report at 8:15 AM ET. It showed private employment was much softer over the past two months than previously thought. September’s number was a huge miss from forecasts, declining 32,000 when the report was expected to indicate 40,000 new payrolls were added. The net loss of jobs wasn’t limited to September either. August’s number that was previously announced at up 54,000 jobs, is now revised to down 3,000. These new figures signal job losses over the previous two months instead of job growth, at least in the private sector. We can argue that the ADP is not reliable in predicting results of the much more influential governmental Employment report, but it looks as if this is the only employment data we will get this week due to the government shutdown. Therefore, we are labeling the data very good news for bonds and mortgage rates.