V.14:6 (262-264) Employment As A Bond Market Forecast by Alex Saitta

How good a barometer is the monthly US employment report for the bond market? One analyst decided to find out. By Alex Saitta

The US employment report that the federal government releases on a monthly basis contains an assortment of data on many different sectors of the economy, so it is known as an excellent barometer of the prior month's economic activity. Market volatility supports the significance of this report. The day the report is released, the Treasury bond futures' trading range is larger than it is on the release dates of other economic reports. In the last eight years, the size of the T-bond's trading range has averaged 44 ticks on the release day of the employment report. By comparison, on the day that the Producer Price Index (PPI) has been released, the average T-bond range is 36 ticks, for retail sales numbers 33 ticks, and on the release day of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the Treasury bond's trading range has averaged 32 ticks.