Seeing Through the BS of the BLS

by | Feb 3, 2023

 

Layoff announcements and hiring freezes are pouring in left and right but you wouldn’t know it by looking at government statistics.

Non-farm payrolls blew out estimates this morning, posting a monster leap higher to 517,000. That was nearly three times economist estimates and basically double last month’s blow out number. Unemployment also ticked lower to 3.4% yielding a labor market tighter than we’ve seen in over a half-century.

And today’s stats are just the latest in a rapidly growing line of mis-matches between results and expectations. It’s enough to cry “data manipulation.” It makes you want to shout “The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) is all BS. They’re not publishing statistics, they’re manufacturing propaganda.”

That doesn’t explain the gap, though. At least not all of it.

To me, these mismatches arise because the statistical tools no longer suit the environment. Economists and statisticians were raised in a linear world. A world where straight lines linked cause and effect. A world where today looked like the past, making guesses about tomorrow easier.

But the tools they built to measure that world fail when chaos creeps in.

It’s Like This Kabbalah Crap Doesn’t Even Work

Econometric models designed to predict systems like the U.S. economy and global trade require only general approximations because general approximations is all that economists have to work with.

And that’s fine when things are normal. But when systems turn chaotic, general approximations no longer suffice.

This is a result of the butterfly effect, or extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. And this extreme sensitivity is a tell tale sign that chaos is at play.

Those models also require proportional relationships between inputs and outputs. When that proportionality gets blown out, the models see randomness. But randomness is an illusion. Chaos doesn’t suspend cause and effect. It makes them exponential. By confusing exponential for random, your errors get exponential as well.

The world is transitioning to something new. And the mismatches between what markets expect and what they get is a good sign that chaos is motivating that transition.

Luckily, my friend Roger Scott has just wrapped up development on a tool specifically designed to spot, and profit from mismatches. It’s a brand-new “pricing mismatch” discovery that could completely transform the way traders look at markets.

His algorithms backtest price patterns on ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds). But rather than looking for big moves that chaos makes harder to predict, he’s aiming for small moves that you can translate into big profits.

I’m talking about turning price changes as little as 1% to 3% into payouts 20 to 30 times as big.

It’s custom-built for the times. And by checking out this video, Roger will give you all you need to to make these mismatches work for you.

Take What the Markets Give You


Garrett Baldwin Just Released His Next Value Stock

If you watched my Roundtable this week, you know that our in-house economist, Garrett Baldwin, believes NOW is the time to pick up value stocks at a discount. And he’s carefully crafting a portfolio to maximize this opportunity for readers. You can get access to it PLUS get fantastic market analysis in his monthly newsletter… all for just $39. Go right here to learn more.

WRITTEN BY<br>Don Yocham

WRITTEN BY
Don Yocham

What to read next