It's NFP week and the data starts today with the ADP report
The market loves a bit of ADP as an appetiser for Friday's payrolls report. Usually it shouldn't be used as a complete proxy for NFP in terms of numbers but by how much it misses expectations by.
This month is usually quite a big month for employment data as we can get big skews caused by the December holiday hiring washing out in Jan.
Expectations for the ADP report are running at around 190-195k. That's a sizeable drop from Dec's 257k so those expectations are probably reflective of the seasonality. Then again, Dec's expectations were 192k and we smashed it with the 257k.
Over the last 5 reports Jan has been lower than Dec in 3/5. From what I can gather the report is run with data to around the 12th of the month so it shouldn't be affected by last months snow storms.
Dec/Jan ADP results
One thing I can confirm is that the ADP is just as much a lottery as the NFP so it's all guess work. All we can do is be mindful of potential reasons why the number may lean a certain way, if it eventually does.
Not a report to get carried away with but the risk is we get another big variation which markets will take note of.
Don't forget that you can join me in a Non-farm payrolls special live trading webinar this Friday. Spaces are being taken up quickly so if you want in, click the links below to register
