Below are two headlines reporting on the same data – the latest jobs report. Take your pick as to which is the more believable. I suppose they could both be wrong, but they seem to be seeing the same data through different lenses. They are examples of both noise and bias. I’ll have more to say about these two phenomena in an upcoming post. You can make your own interpretation of the accuracy of these two headlines. When doing so consider the source of each. The two articles are abstracted below.
Gold Rises as Weak Jobs Reports Prompts a Sell Off of the U.S. Dollar
BY MT Newswires — 2:02 PM ET 06/04/2021
02:02 PM EDT, 06/04/2021 (MT Newswires) — Gold prices rose on Friday after the U.S. dollar fell following a weaker than expected rise in U.S. employment in May.
Gold for August delivery settled up US$18.70 to US$1,892.00 per ounce in Comex trade.
The rise came after the United States reported that it added 559,000 jobs in May, below expectations for a 700,000 job rise. The weak report pushed the U.S. dollar lower, with the ICE dollar index last seen down 0.37 to 90.14.
However bond yields were higher following the report, with the U.S. 10-year bond last seen offering 1.62%, up 1.5 basis points, Action Economics reported.
U.S. job growth improves; desperate employers raise wages to attract workers
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers increased hiring in May and raised wages as they competed for workers, with millions of unemployed Americans still at home because of childcare issues, generous unemployment checks and lingering fears over COVID-19.
Though the pickup in job growth shown in the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday missed economists’ forecasts, it offered some assurance that the recovery from the pandemic recession remained on track.
