The US economy added just 12,000 jobs in October, which was well below expectations. Plus, revisions to previous data for August and September cut 112K jobs from those months combined while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. This report was the worst report we’ve seen since December of 2020. Any way you slice it this was not good. I do understand there are so many moving parts to the jobs report but it is frustrating when rates spiked due to a blowout report last month when it wasn’t as strong as it appeared. For some reason the market doesn’t care about revisions either.

Given how important this report was and the fact that it was very underwhelming you would think rates would go lower right? Wrong! Rates spiked again today which leads me to believe it has more to do with the election next week and the Fed meeting. The expectation is still a .25% rate cut which this job report pretty much confirms. As I mentioned in my last report I don’t think it matters who wins the election but if we see one party with a sweep of the house, senate, and presidency I do think there could be more movement upwards. Although given the climb in rates over the last few weeks it’s hard to think that rates could continue to head higher. All that being said next week could be quite volatile.

Recap:

• October job report was very weak at only 12k jobs added
• Rate cut for next week is almost a certainty
• Election and Fed meeting will cause volatility in the market