"YOU'RE RIDING HIGH IN APRIL AND SHOT DOWN IN MAY..."

Just like the old Sinatra tune "That's Life," the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded as high as 11,258 in mid-April - but May wasn't quite so good for Stocks, as the Dow lost 8% in May, suffering its worst one-month decline in 70 years. 

In the end, May was quite a slippery month all the way around, dominated by headlines of Greece and Oil...and so far in the first week of June, it hasn't been much different. 

But one important economic report that managed to break through the news from across the globe was the official Jobs Report, which came in far worse than most estimates. The bad news pressured Stocks lower on Friday - and with the money flowing out of Stocks and into Bonds - helped home loan rates see a bit of unexpected improvement on Friday.
 
As you can see in the chart below, the headline number in the Jobs Report showed 431,000 jobs created in May. On the surface, this would seem like a very good thing, but that number was not only well below the 500,000 that were expected, but also was primarily made up of temporary census workers hired by the government. In fact, 411,000 of the 431,000 hires were exactly this - temporary census workers who are certainly glad to have a job, but who will join the ranks of the unemployed once again when the 2010 Census has been completed. 

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Chart: U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls (By Month)

The headline job creations number that you hear about in the media comes from the business or Establishment Report, also known as Current Employment Statistics...and it can be misleading, as it includes something called the "birth-death ratio," which is a model or estimate of businesses created or closed within a given month, and based on historical data, supposedly foretells how many jobs were created or lost as a result. And this estimating method can be very highly inaccurate, particularly during times of changes in business cycles and the economy, such as we are going through presently. 

But even the Household Survey - which previously showed 1.1 Million jobs created over the past three months - showed 35,000 jobs lost during May. This is important because the Household Survey or Current Population Survey (CPS) may be a more accurate reading, since actual households are contacted. Additionally, this is the survey that gives us the Unemployment Rate. 

Overall, the Jobs Report was disappointing, but at least there still were some modest job creations. Additionally, average hours worked did improve, which is a good sign. And the Unemployment Rate did drop from 9.9% to 9.7%. So a bit of good news was found in the Report, and as Sinatra might say. "You Can't Take That Away From Me."