Impact Of US Jobles 'Recovery'...

Posted this morning: Let's Cheer The Jobless Recovery!

Ever wonder the impact of the US unemployment market on the rest of the world?

Surely this is not a non-issue yes?

I was reading Professor Pettit's blog and I found his comments on his latest posting, The Shanghai market calls the tune, rather enlightening for me.

Here are some of the interesting passages from his editorial.

• The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets are still hogging the spotlight. Although down 18.0% from its recent peak exactly one month ago, the past three days have been good for Chinese stock market investors. After rising 0.60% on Tuesday and 1.17% on Wednesday, the SSE composite was up a very smart 4.79% today.
  
  So what happened? Better-than-expected earnings from Chinese corporations? A surge in US household income and a decline in US unemployment boosting the prospects for China’s tradable goods sector? A huge new loan number for the month of August?
  
  Actually, none of the above. In fact the US numbers look especially bleak for China. In spite of some seemingly good news on the macroeconomic side, unemployment in the US is still rising, and even that masks the depth of the problem. Many Americans who have lost jobs have since then found new jobs, but at lower pay, so that although they don’t show up adversely in the unemployment data, they nonetheless represent lower income to workers as certainly as rising unemployment does, and this will have an impact on future private consumption.
  
  Societe Generale’s ever bearish Albert Edwards had an excellent piece on the subject on August 6, in which he argues that:
  
  US nominal household incomes are now contracting at an unprecedented rate. The largest component of household income is wages and salaries which had been declining some 1% yoy. But after revisions the statisticians now admit to an unprecedented 4.8% decline! Total pre-tax household income is now recorded as falling 3.4% yoy in June.
  
  If US household income is declining so sharply, we can’t really expect a sharp pick-up in imports, even ignoring the fact that households are also in the process of deleveraging, and so cutting back even more sharply on consumption that their incomes might indicate. But in spite of still-bad news in both the external or internal environments, the markets are nonetheless in a much better mood than they were just a few days ago. Why?......
• .......................... Or, if you prefer Bloomberg’s slightly more forthright explanation:
  China’s stocks rose the most in two weeks on speculation regulators will adopt measures to boost the nation’s equities following declines in the past month. ................
• There is a general sense that no one wants the markets to misbehave before the all-important October 1 celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic. Needless to say this begs the question about when exactly should you, as an investor, get out of the market? The day before? But if everyone knows that, then shouldn’t you get out two days before, or maybe three, since everyone has presumably figured that one out too?
  
  In 2006, 2007 and 2008 I wrote often about the dangers of this sort of market signaling. There may be perfectly good reasons to want to manipulate the markets with non-fundamental information, but every time this happens it further undermines the development of a healthy capital market that allocates capital based on economic prospects by undermining the value of fundamental information and reinforcing the value of speculation on government intentions. Still, on such an important anniversary I suppose it was totally unrealistic to think that the authorities would let angry investors spoil the party.....

ps: DO read the rest of the blog posting.

Yeah... would you cheer the US jobless recovery?