And even those who have been feeling grumpy about the weak labor market found something to smile about last Friday. The official Jobs Report for November was released - and the improving numbers were a big surprise to the markets.
According to the Labor Department, only 11,000 jobs were lost in November, despite expectations of 125,000 jobs lost. As you can see from the chart below, this marks the least number of jobs lost in nearly two years - since December 2007. Adding to the favorable news, the Unemployment Rate improved to 10.0%, when expectations were for it to remain at the 10.2% level.
While the news was good for the economy and helped Stocks improve sharply, it wasn't so favorable for Bonds...and as a result, home loan rates moved slightly higher on the news, continuing their worsening trend for the week overall.
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Chart: 2009 Job Growth/Losses (In Thousands)
In other news, based on early numbers, 195 Million shoppers hit the stores and websites on Black Friday, which was up from last year's 172 Million. Cyber Monday - the online equivalent of Black Friday - also showed an increase in web shoppers, up by 6% from last year. It appears that the shopping traffic was up, but the dollars-per-shopper may be down a bit. This might be indicative of not only consumers being conservative...but also the fact that with all the deep sales taking place to incent buyers, fewer dollars may be spent to get the very same merchandise as a year ago.
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