Here’s this One Weird Chart that Predicts NFP

Next Friday morning, the investment world will be focused on the March jobs report. Guessing the correct NFP number has become a popular game on Wall Street.

However, trying to guess the number ignores an important point — nonfarm payrolls have grown in a nearly perfect trend over the last two-and-a-half years.

Here’s a look at NFP over the last 30 months. I’ve included a trend
line in black that has grown at 1.67% per year. It aligns with NFP growth almost perfectly.

Naturally, this is after-the-fact trend fitting, but the trend is very real. In fact, the blue line’s deviations have grown less pronounced in the last year. The trend is getting trendier.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on March 28th, 2014 at 10:52 am

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