The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

* We have some key primary elections coming up tomorrow and I want to take an opportunity to do a podcast on Donald Trump and the Trump phenomenon * A lot of people are under the impression that I am endorsing Donald Trump because I have said some po...

* Mario Draghi at the ECB fired his big bazooka today; people had anticipated that that would be the case * In fact, it seems like he fired a bigger blast than people were expecting, he announced that he would reduce negative interest rates further * They moved from -.3 to -.4 and he announced an expansion of their quantitative easing program from €60 billion per month to €80 billion, which means that their program is not larger than the Fed's; remember we were doing $85 billion a month before we tapered it down * So what the ECB is doing is closer to $90 billion * The problem for the market is that even though he fired a bigger blast than the markets had anticipated, after he fired it, he put that bazooka back in his holster * What I mean by that, is at the end of his press conference, Draghi mention that he thought that this would probably be the last cut, that -40 is as low as the ECB is going to go * Now maybe the market was just looking for an excuse to reverse, but the Euro, which had initially dropped sharply, about 1.5% down on the day, following the initial announcement, reversed and ended up falling about 2%, so it was a 3.5% reversal, and from what I've read, this is the biggest reversal, ever in the euro, from down to up * In fact the dollar index went through 4 handles, at its highs this morning, the dollar index was at 98.5 and at its lows it was trading at around 95 * Many people think this is a failure for the ECB; they want a weaker euro, because they want more inflation * I think the ECB is going to get more inflation, whether the euro weakens or strengthens against the dollar, because it's still going to weaken in real purchasing power * Just as I mentioned in yesterday's podcast, referring to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Mario Draghi is saying that he doesn't have enough inflation, and interestingly enough, Draghi is going to get more inflation, and more than he's bargaining for * He mentioned in his press conference that these things take time, because it will take time for inflation for develop because first we need the recovery to regain traction, as if inflation is a by-product of economic growth - it's not. * It's a by-product of all the money printing * It's just that right now, a lot of that money printing is in the financial assets * But all this QE and negative interest rates are not going to get economic growth * Now maybe the Eurozone economy will grow, but it's not because of QE, it's despite QE * In fact, there would be more growth, if the ECB wasn't doing this, what they are doing is counter productive * But ultimately they will succeed in getting more inflation, in fact they will get more than they bargained for * I predict that prices in the Eurozone will not only hit the 2% target, it will exceed it, and that will mean the ECB is going to have to quickly withdraw that stimulus, they will have to raise rates much faster than they thought and much higher than they thought, but at least they'll do it * We can't. that's the big difference.  Europe can afford higher rates, America cannot * Europe is going to have the Bundesbank pressuring the ECB fight that inflation; there will be no such pressure on the Fed from the United States * Normally, too, when the ECB eases, gold goes down and that was the knee-jerk reaction, as soon as the announcement came out, the price of gold dropped about $15, but it reversed very quickly and it ended up finishing up $19 * We're talking about a $35 intra day reversal, in fact, the low was below $1240, but ever since the price of gold closed above $1250, it has never closed below $1250 * This is the highest close of the year, it's the first time I've see gold close above $1270 * Gold stocks closed at their highs of the year, the GDX index of gold miners was up 4.5% today closing at $20.38 - this is the first close above $20 all year * The key level for gold is going to be $1280

* So far it's been a pretty light week but what little economic data that has been released is bad, and all of it evidences the recession that nobody wants to acknowledge * Let's start with the Consumer Credit numbers that came out on Monday.  Not only was the number extremely weak, but the revisions to the prior month were even weaker * The initial report for the growth in consumer credit in December was $21.3 billion * Now I don't think growth in consumer credit is good; I think it undermines long-term living standards * The last thing you want to do is borrow money to consume, one of the points I really hammered home in my book, "How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes" * If you haven't bought that book, you should get a copy * Be sure to pick the collector's edition because, in addition to being a really beautiful book, it has two entirely new chapters.  If you already have the original one, buy the collector's edition and give the original away to a friend. * Consumers should not borrow to consume.  They should save to consume. * Businesses should use our savings to invest in capital equipment to grow the economy * When you consume savings, you undermine long-term economic growth and therefore future consumption is diminished * The problem is we're living in a bubble, and in order to sustain this bubble economy, consumers have to keep spending * In this economy, however in order to keep spending they have to keep borrowing because they're certainly not earning, and they don't have any savings *  This has to blow up eventually but right now, it's all about keeping the music going * Consumer credit was revised down from the originally reported $21.3 billion to just $6.4 billion of growth * They were looking for January to grow by $16.5 billion, and of course, this also includes student loans, as well as credit cards * Instead, we got an increase of just $10.5 billion * Consumer credit growth imploded in December and January * If there's all this job creation why aren't these newly-employed people spending money? * This shows you the jobs are going to people who already have part-time jobs, and need to supplement hours and wages * Also, we got the Small Business Optimism Index, which last month was 93.9, and there was an expectation that it would increase to 94.2, that small businesses would be a little more optimistic, yet it dropped a full point to 92.9 - the lowest level in 2 years * If that is the case, why are they hiring people? * The type of hiring that is going on is hiring part time workers to replace full-time workers * Which brings me to the data that came out today: Wholesale Trade * Inventories were expected to drop, but they increased by .3% * And the inventory for December was revised from -.1 to unchanged * The reason inventories spiked is because sales collapsed * The inventory to sales ratio just hit a new high, at 1.35 * This is a 7-year high. The last time the inventory to sales ratio was this high was in April of 2009.  We were still knee-deep in the Great Recession * If this recovery even exists, why isn't the merchandise being bought? * At some point this year, the lone remaining bright spot in this horrible economic landscape - the number of jobs being created - will turn down * We got more disappointing corporate earnings news this week * The reason the stock market is moving slightly up is because of the sentiment that the Fed will not raise rates in the near future * It's not just the stock market - Oil is above $38/barrel * Also some of the industrial metals have had huge spikes * And of course, the dollar is going down against other currencies * The Australian dollar hit an 8- month high * The Canadian dollar hit a 4-month high * The New Zealand dollar was also at an 8-month high until the Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised the markets and cut interest rates from 2.5% to 2.

* The media, the Federal Reserve and President Obama continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence out this week, in fact every week for the past couple of months that the U.S. economy has already slipped back into recession * The last revision to Q4 ...

* The Dow finished the last trading day in February, with a 123-point decline, in fact the Dow Jones closed at the low of the day; the NASDAQ was down 32.5 points * Gold reversed the declined from Friday, it was up $16.5 today it's up another $2.50 as I record this, we're now back above $1240 * The reason gold declined on Friday was that the rate hike was apparently back on the table because of some stronger than expected Q4 GDP numbers and also the consumer income and spending numbers were hotter than expected * If you remember, I thought Q4 GDP would be revised down from .7%, in fact the consensus was for a downward revision to .4%; as it turned out, the government moved it up to +1% * The reason for the adjustment was that inventories were not draw down as much as was originally thought, so I suppose that will happen in 2016 Q1 * In fact, the Atlanta GDP has already walked down their estimate for Q1 a bit, since that number came out. * I don't think it really matters with the government says Q4 GDP was, because before the year is over they will revise that quarter negative because they will have to admit that the recession began last quarter * They always declare a recession after the fact by going back and revising down the data * We got the January trade deficit in merchandise that actually came out bigger than expected;  $62.2 billion vs $61 billion - that's a lot of red ink for merchandise trade in one month * What also spooked the gold market was the income and spending numbers - hotter than anticipated - personal income up .5 vs .4 expected, spending also up .5 vs .3 expected * The core CPE numbers, the inflation numbers were hotter also; instead of being unchanged, were up .1 * Year over year, we were up 1.7 on the core and 1.3 overall * The idea was that these numbers indicated that the rate hikes are back on the table * I don't think so; especially when you look at the horrible numbers that came out today * First is the Chicago PMI for February. Last month was 55.6, they were looking for 52.9; we got 47.6 * If you look at some of the sub-components, including employment, this was the weakest Chicago PMI since the great recession of 2009 *

* The rally in the U.S. stock market continues, the Dow closing up more than 212 right at the high of the day * It's not just the Dow Jones that is rising, and by the way, this is the highest the Dow Jones has closed since early January, so it's better than a one month high * Oil prices closed above $33/barrel for West Texas, again that's the highest level since early January * The dollar is weak across the board, in fact the Canadian dollar hit a 3-month high today against the U.S. dollar - this currency has really been beaten up until recently * Gold, higher again today, up about 4 or 5 bucks, it closed above $1232 * What is behind the rally? I think it is the deluge of bad economic news that keeps raining down on this market * I believe more and more people are beginning to realize that the Fed is not only not going to be raising interest rates in 2016, but they will cut them, and do another round of economic stimulus and that's is what is saving the market * The question is, with the Fed actually validate those expectations? * Even Jim Cramer of CNBC can see there's a recession * I just put up an article on my Facebook page yesterday, Cramer is saying the Fed is blind and can't see the recession * Maybe Cramer has been listening to my podcasts... * Do you remember the famous interview with Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett that went viral and he went on a rant about the Fed, "They know nothing!" * You've got Cramer calling out the Fed for not appreciating the weakness in the economy and calling on them to do something * I think they are going to do something, they're not just going to turn a deaf ear to the economy * But the Fed is still officially sticking to the party line * Today I wanted to talk about the CNBC interview with Jim Bullard * First, he told Matt Belvedere he was concerned that "inflation expectations" were too low * Of all the things you're going to worry about as a central banker, you're going to worry about the fact that people don't expect enough inflation? * Historically that would be a victory - that's what you want as a central banker * You want to stamp out the fear of inflation * What Bullard wants is more fear - he wants people to expect even higher inflation than they currently experience * Why would he want that? * Supposedly the lack of belief that inflation is going to be higher is somehow holding back the economy * Bullard believes inflation is going to be higher; why is he upset that the public doesn't believe it, too? Why? * How does the expectation of higher inflation help an economy? * The only thing that's good about inflation is if you're a debtor; if you borrowed money, inflation will help ease the pain of that debt * You would figure the last thing the Fed would want is for people to expect higher inflation, because what would happen to bond holders? * Bond holders would not want to hold bonds at low rates; they would demand higher interest on those bonds, which would crush the government because they don't have the money * It would also crush the Fed, because the Fed's balance sheet is loaded up with long-term government bonds that yield next to nothing * What's going to happen to the value of those bonds if potential buyers believe inflation is going to be higher? * Bond prices will collapse and the Fed will take a huge hit

* We had some wild swing in the market today, particularly the stock market and the gold market * At one point this morning, the Dow Jones was down about 270 points * It finished the day up 53 points * There wasn't any real news that caused the m...

* It looks like Jamie Dimon's bottom turned out to be the trap door I thought it was, with the Dow Jones today down almost 190 points * The market was let lower by the financials, JP Morgan itself down better than 4% * Remember it was Jami Dimon having the confidence to put a year's salary into company stock that sparked this rally, but it seems to be losing steam and rolling over * Because we're not going to get a lasting bottom until the Fed makes that bottom *  It's not going to be a Jamie Dimon bottom, it has to be a Janet Yellen bottom; and as much as I have no interest in seeing Janet Yellen's bottom, that's exactly what we're going to have to do to get a real low in this market * Every single decline that the market has experienced since 2009, the bottom has been set by the Fed * It's been the Fed forming that bottom by coming to the rescue with rate cuts, QE programs, Operation Twist, hinting about more QE, and so far, the Fed has done none of that * The Fed is still sticking to its narrative that rate hikes are coming * Yes, nobody believes they're coming anytime soon, but that is still the official forecast * Meanwhile, the markets can't even deal with rates as is * The gold market will be the mirror image of the stock market; gold was up about $16 today * It reversed a near $20 decline yesterday, but it consolidating its huge move above $1200 * So we are not getting the pullback that Dennis Gartman and Jim Cramer are hoping for to get on board * I think if people want to get on board this train, this is the stop. * If you like gold, just buy it and be happy that you're getting it for $1225 - yes, you could have bought it below $1100 in December, but $1225 is still cheap * The most interesting about yesterday's drop in gold - the gold stocks didn't really decline * Most of the gold stocks finished positive on the day * Gold stocks added to their gains today, and many are sitting on their highest close of the year, and several are at 52-week highs * Other than the gold stocks, the 52-week high list is pretty short * The 52-week low list looks like a rap sheet * Something happened on Friday that made some people believe that help from the Fed is not forthcoming * Which may be part of the reason why the markets are declining * The release of the CPI number caught a lot of people by surprise: January consumer prices, forecast to drop by .1% * The real number was the core rate, which excludes food and energy was up .3, month over month - the biggest jump since August 2011 * The increase in the core price year-over-year was 2.2%, the biggest increase since June of 2012 * Remember, the Fed says our target is 2%, well, we got 2.2! * We're there! We can raise rates! That's what's so scary * I wrote a commentary that is posted on this website, "The Fed’s Nightmare Scenario", and I got that title after reading an article in which an economist who, observing that the CPI was 2.2% announced that this is a"dream come true" for the Fed * He cited inflation as the primary barrier to the Fed's rate increase goals * The Fed's "mandate" of 2% inflation is finally met * First, the Fed doesn't have a mandate of 2% inflation. They made that up. * The Fed's real mandate is price stability, which doesn't require a definition, because everybody knows what the word "stable" means * The Federal Reserve decided to interpret that mandate to mean an increase of 2% * The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the few justices who believed in the "bizarre concept" of original intent * He believed that the Constitution actually meant what the founding fathers intended it to mean, that the words actually mean what they say * My father always said, "If you want to know what the Constitution says, read it.  It's not written in Chinese." * If you're really not sure,

* What a difference two days make! Two days ago I recorded my podcast, "Goldman Sachs Sacks Gold", and that was because Goldman Sachs' comments about shorting gold were partially responsible for the severity of the drop in gold over the holiday weekend * Today, gold is fighting back, at one gold was up better than $30, although as I record this the price has pulled back a bit, still above $1230 - up about $22 on the day * Gold stocks, the GDX index I mentioned in my last podcast, was up 6% on the day, the biggest move up of the year * That index has recovered everything it lost on Tuesday * GDX would have been up a lot more, except that Newmont Mining came out with lower than expected earnings for the 4th quarter; so that stock was only up about 1% after dropping  7% in the first hour of trading * Several gold stocks made new 52-week highs today and several others are at the highest point of this calendar year * A very strong day for gold and gold stocks just a couple of days after Goldman Sachs recommended selling the metal short * People would have been much better off shorting Goldman Sachs * One of the other catalysts for the rise in the price of gold may well have been the comments made overnight by Jim Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis * After I read his comments, I expected the price of gold to rally right away, but it didn't begin until later this morning * Bullard was one of the real Hawks on the Fed, he wanted to raise rates much earlier, citing concern about a stock market bubble * Talk about closing the barn door after the horses have left!  They have left the stables, the property, they're barely on the planet! * His comments last night about why the Fed should slow down the rate hikes are ironic, because his reason is the volatility in the stock market * Let me get this straight: He wants to raise rates because we don't want a stock market bubble; * They raise rates, the bubble is deflating and he wants to stop the rate cuts * You can't have it both ways. * Do you want to use monetary policy to prop up the stock market or not? * Bullard has not turned dove, do who's left? The FOMC minutes came out Wednesday and they showed that only a couple of governors did not show concern over the weakness in the stock market * What really should get the Fed governors nervous is the economy * Today we got the Leading Economic Indicators and last month they were down, in fast the original estimate for December was-.2 - instead, it was revised to -.3 * January is now -.2, so that is the second consecutive month of declining Leading Economic Indicators * That has not happened since August and September of 2011 * Here's the interesting part: QE2 ended in June of that year, so 2 months after the end of QE2, the economic indicators flashed recession * What did the Fed do? In September of 2011, the second month of the back-to-back declines in LEI, the Fed launched Operation Twist * That's what happening now, they just raised interest rates, we got back-to-back declines in LEI, what's the Fed going to do? They are going to come back and save the market * We got more bad economic news today; the Philly Fed, this is the 6th consecutive monthly decline * January was down 3.5%; February was down 2.8% * They were expecting -2.5%, so we got a bigger decline than expected * We got weak news on the housing market; housing starts dropping to a 3-month low, much lower than the 1.175M - instead we got 1.099M * Permits were also light; they were looking for 1.334M and we got 1.202M on starts * I think we are just getting started when it comes to the fallout in the housing market * One thing keeping it afloat is the ultra-low mortgage rates, which are the lowest they've been at any point in a cycle * Despite all that, the market is just barely hanging on,

* The big story of the day was the pullback in the price of gold * Gold was above $1260 last week; it pulled back a little bit on Friday, but the real damage happened overnight on Monday, while we were celebrating Presidents' Day * At one point gold was down almost $50; trading even below $1190 * When we opened up for trading in New York, gold was back above $1210.; it tried to rally, but really couldn't, in fact the only time gold rallied today is when the Dow sold off to +50 from +150 * The stock market and the gold market are the mirror image of each other right now * Ultimately, I do believe that stocks, gold stocks and gold will be going in the same direction because they will all respond positively to the Fed admitting that it will not raise interest rates, and in fact cut them and will launch QE4 * Now, gold is the safe haven from weak stocks, but the best environment is when the Fed steps up to save stocks, and that's when the gold trade is going to catch a bid * But when the market closed on the highs of the day, up over 200 points, that means gold closed on the low of the day * GLD, the ETF for gold, for today's decline, we were down $35.90 * In the spot market, we closed right about $1200 even * A good point: look at the gold stocks, GDX, that index was down 8.65% * In all the big gold up days, we never had a comparable up day for gold stocks * On gold's best day, the biggest day since 2008, gold stocks were just up about 5% * Yet on the down side, a -3% move in gold produces a -9% move in gold stocks * Why is all the movement on the down side? * One, there's still more fear than greed in the gold market * This is a good sign - a bull market climbing a wall of worry * This is just a resumption of a long-term secular market that began in 1999-2000 * Goldman Sachs rhetoric may in part be responsible for the sharp selloff * I mention on last week's podcast that Goldman was recommending a sell on gold, that it was going back down to $1000 * On Monday, while the market was having a holiday, Goldman Sachs was out with their PR again, not only telling people to sell gold, but to short gold * Why would Goldman Sachs be telling people to short gold? *  Why would they bother with a 20% short when there are so many stocks being killed right now that would be much better to short * Gold will never be worthless, what if it goes up? Why risk losing all that money? * The risk/reward isn't there * Goldman says they don't think there will be a recession and the Fed's going to keep raising rates * They admit there is a small chance of a recession this year: what's going to happen to gold if we go into recession? * What happens if you have shorted gold, hoping to capture just 20%? * The only thing that would make sense to me is that Goldman Sachs wants the price of gold to go down because they're probably already short - that's why

* Big day in gold today; gold broke over $1200 for the first time in almost over a year, in fact we hit a new 1-year high * I saw gold trading above 1260 at one point in the morning, that was up better than $60 on the ounce; It closed up 49.10, I believe at $124.90 * Remember, I was on CNBC "Futures Now" earlier in the week and gold was around $1180-$1190 and they were trying to press me on where I thought it would go, and I said, it's going to go higher, I'm bullish in the short term, the medium and the long term * But I'll tell you one thing: when gold brakes through $1200, it's going to move to $1300 very quickly and people are going to be surprised * It's just been one day and we're halfway there * Gold stocks still reflect a lot of skepticism on this rally; Gold stocks were up about 7% on the day * Gold stocks have a long way to go to catch up * I mentioned on the last podcast, Dennis Gartman, who got bullish on gold, told people not to buy, he said wait for a pull back * Well the people who are waiting f or a pull back are still waiting and they missed this entire $50 move * The stock market was the mirror image of the gold market today; at one point, with less than an hour to go, the Dow was down 400 points again, the NASDAQ was maybe down about 60 * Then all of a sudden there was a rumor floated that the United Arab Emirates was considering meeting with other OPEC nations about a production cut and all of a sudden the market rallied * The NASDAQ actually rallied positive; the Dow got to  about -170 and then they rolled over on the close, Dow down 254, NASDAQ down 16.76 - horrible close * Of course the weakest stocks on the day continue to be the financials getting decimated to new lows * Goldman Sachs down about 4.5%,  Morgan Stanley down 4.5%, Bank of America down 6.8% - many of these companies making new 52-week lows * But outside the financials, the debacle du jour, in the stock market is Boeing, which is a Dow component, was down 7% on the day, near a 3-year low; the lowest I saw inter-day was -12% * The news is that the SEC will investigate their accounting practices - that can't be good * Also they reported that they are going to be laying off workers in an effort to contain their costs * It's not just about bad oil loans, that's part of the story, that's just the tip of a huge iceberg * In fact, the market rallied because of the rumor of OPEC is making moves to support oil prices * We hear people saying that what the stock market needs is higher oil prices.  No we don't! * Higher oil prices will help oil stocks, but they're not going to help the overall market market because some guy writes an algorithm that runs a program that says, "Buy stocks when oil goes up" * Steve Liesman said on CNBC recently that he never would have believed the market would be so dependent on oil prices * A lot of people make that mistake, assuming that oil is driving the stock market but the same factors are dominating both:  fear of higher interest rates and weakness in the U.S. economy * But eventually, I think oil prices will go up, and the stock market will continue to go down * Many people are hopeful that Janet Yellen's second trip to Capitol Hill, this time talking to the Senate, might save the market; apparently that was not the case * Janet Yellen, this time, in the Q&A was closer to admitting that negative rates are coming * She actually said they would consider doing it if the economy needed it * All the discussion is going straight to negative rates and skipping over zero interest rates and QE * There was no discussion about reversing December's .25 rate hike * If Janet Yellen is thinking about negative rates, she has ready considered zero rates and QE * She obviously can't be as confident in the economy as she appears to be * Some people are asking "Is this an over-reaction to global market troubles and oil prices?" * No one considers that the U.S.

* Janet Yellen was up on the Hill today for the first of her two-day testimony before Congress * Remember I said the only way that Janet Yellen could stop the market from falling is to admit that the Fed will alter its 4-rate-hike trajectory for 2016...

* It was another volatile day in the U.S. stock market, with the Dow swinging from positive to negative to positive to finally closing negative, but well off the lows and the highs of the day * The NASDAQ was only down about 15; the Dow down about 12...

* As I mentioned in my video blog I recorded on Friday,  the jobs data that came out on Friday was just not weak enough for the market * So the markets' carnage continues, because everybody still believes the Federal Reserve may in fact be raising in...

* It really was a brutal week on Wall Street, led by the tech-heavy NASDAQ, which is down about 5-1/2% on the week; 3% of that alone came today, now down about 17% from its high * Not officially in a bear market yet, but getting there * The vast majority of NASDAQ stocks are in bear markets, in fact, many of those stocks are down 40 or 50% or more - a number of those stocks down 40 or 50% today alone * The Russell 2000 is already in a bear market; it's down 24% * Dow Transports also down 25%, and transports were actually up this week * The S&P and the Dow are only down about 12% - in correction but not quite a bear market, but remember, all bear markets begin as corrections, and I think this is just the early stage of a bear market * You can contrast that with what's going on with gold; gold was up 5% on the week.  It added $18 today alone to close above 1170, in fact the price of gold has risen by $120/ounce since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in December * The dollar also had a bad week, despite rising somewhat today on the jobs numbers, the dollar index had its worst weekly decline since 2009 * So now, the opposite of what everybody expected has happened * Everybody thought the stock market would go up, because the rate hike was proof that the economy was stronger; instead the stock market has tanked, in fact the beginning of January was Wall Street's  worst start to the year in history * In contrast, the expectation was that rising interest rates would help the dollar; instead the dollar has actually declined * Higher interest rates were expected to be bearish for gold; instead it was the catalyst for a huge rally in the price of gold * The weaker than expected jobs report was assumed to be the reason for today's stock market carnage, because we only created 151,000 non-farm payroll jobs and the Street was looking for 188,000 jobs * The reality is not that the report was weak, it is that it was not weak enough * The only thing that could have saved this market would have been a horrible jobs report - a jobs report so bad that an interest rate hike would be clearly off the table * Instead, this jobs report could indicate that the Fed is more likely to raise rates as a result of the numbers * That is why the market went down * No one wants to admit that the only thing holding up this market is the Fed, so they pretend that the market is disappointed by the weakness of the report * Jobs have nothing to do with it - this market has always been about one thing - the Fed and cheap money * Now it hangs on weather the Fed will raise rates again * I believe the next thing the Fed is going to do is to cut interest rates * I think they might even go negative and they going to launch QE4 * The markets have not figured this out yet * Even the Atlanta Fed, whose first estimate of Q1 GDP at just 1.2% (I think this is an over-estimation; I think the Q4 .7% will be downwardly revised) saw this apparently strong jobs report they increased their Q1 GDP estimate by a full percentage point to 2.2% * If the Atlanta Fed thought the jobs report was so strong, why are the reporters assigning blame to the jobs report for the sell-off * If you look beneath the headline number of the miss, on the number of non-farm payrolls, you'll find out what the markets were so worried about: * 1) The official unemployment rate moved down to 4.9% - that's the first time we've had a 4 handle on the unemployment rate since Obama has been President * In fact, he did not waste much time calling a press conference proclaiming the success of his administration and declaring that the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world; quite ironic because I thin we are already in recession * The President also took credit for the fact that average hourly earnings rose * This was the nail in the stock market's coffin today: Wages were expected to rise by .3% and instead they rose by .