Traders Are Blaming Thursday's Big Sell-Off On 1 Stat (DJIA -317)

BI ^ | 7-31-2014 | Sam Ro

[blam]

Sam Ro
July 31, 2014

The stock market is experiencing its worst one-day sell-off in months.

There's no shortage of things to be worried about. Argentina just defaulted, Iraq's a mess, and Russia could soon retaliate for the latest round of economic sanctions.

But traders agree that Thursday's sell-off is probably due to one stat: the 0.7% jump in the employment cost index (ECI) in the second quarter.

This number, which crossed at 8:30 a.m. ET, was a bit higher than the 0.5% expected by economists. And it represents a year-over-year growth rate of over 2%.

It's a big deal, because it's both a sign of inflation and labor-market tightness, two forces that put pressure on the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy sooner than later.

"I just confirmed this theory with Art Cashin," said NYSE floor governor Rich Barry. "He agrees that today's sell-off has much more to do with Fed concerns than with Argentina." (Cashin is a veteran trader and UBS Financial Services' director of floor operations.)

On Wednesday the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said, "a range of labor market indicators suggests that there remains significant underutilization of labor resources."

Thursday's ECI suggests otherwise.

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[House Atreides]

“... the suckers are selling during a run, and the smart people are buying....”
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I guess you didn’t get your sell orders in early enough?

[Westbrook]

> I guess you didn’t get your sell orders in early enough?

Nope.

I’ll ride it out.

I’ve ridden it out before.

So far, so good.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Just saw that article in my email. Interesting. Another sign that the Fed will continue the taper which is seen as bad news by the Street... Not sure I agree that it’s bad news but...

[expat_panama]

Today's drop was not all that newsworthy (imho) as it's the kind of thing we see every few months, but the ECI jump has raised quite a few of my eyebrows --especially when I looked at it along with the employment/population ratio:

. 

There's a lot of things we can say is happening to explain this:

• ECI is volatile and can plunge right back down next quarter
• the ECI's telling us that hiring's about to pick up big-time
• labor costs are jumping w/o employment increases because of o'care
• labor costs are jumping w/o employment increases because min. wage hikes are forcing those hiring to compete for a shrinking pool of hyper productive employees
• we're seeing a cultural shift where the new normal is millions of people are choosing to live w/o working.

[CincyRichieRich]

“Fake 4% GDP
Fake 6.2% unempl
Inflation on groceries and gas and no spending money...velocity coming to a halt. Part time jobs only.
Gold and silver price manipulated.
Duh.”

No, that’s all meaningless. The people who move the market already knew all those things, just like you.

Try again.

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Criticism is cheap. So put up. What is your take?

[Intolerant in NJ]

A hike in the minimum wage will do that to ya......

[Varsity Flight]

Government pension flow into the FCGPDJ, Fascist- Contractors-Government-Pension Dow Jones, just can’t keep Extorting enough from the independent sector, as they are trying to do with Extortion-Care.