Event recaps · US payrolls (NFP) history · 6 Oct 2017, 13:30 UK
A distorted number
This was the first fall in payrolls in years, but almost everyone knew why. Two hurricanes had kept restaurant workers off payrolls during the survey week. Markets looked through the headline. Bitcoin drifted lower for an hour, then began one of the strongest weeks of the 2017 boom.
- Release
- Friday 6 October 2017, 13:30 UK
- Payrolls
- -33,000 (BLS)
- Unemployment
- 4.2%, down from 4.4%
- Cause
- Hurricanes Harvey and Irma (BLS)
- Bitcoin at release
- $4,400
The numbers
Payrolls fell 33,000 (BLS). Restaurant and bar jobs fell by 105,000. The BLS explained that workers who are not paid during the survey period are not counted, and the storms struck around the survey period. The household survey, which counts people who have a job even if they miss work, showed unemployment falling to 4.2%. About 1.5 million people had a job but were off work because of bad weather, the most in 20 years (BLS).
A slow, small drift
- 1 14:00 UK: about 0.5% down
- 2 14:40 UK: low, about 1.5% down
Bitcoin barely moved on the release, -0.15% after five minutes, then drifted down to about 1.5% lower at 14:40 UK. It was -0.87% at the hour, #26 of 117 jobs reports at 1.9 times a normal hour, and -0.62% at four hours. Ether was flat. The S&P 500 ETF was +0.12%.
| Market | 15m | 1h | 4h | 24h | 1w | × normal hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | −0.05% | −0.87% | −0.62% | −1.79% | +27.20% | 1.9× |
| Ethereum | +0.65% | 0.00% | −0.18% | +1.43% | +11.05% | – |
| S&P 500 ETF (SPY) | +0.05% | +0.12% | −0.04% | – | – | – |
| Nasdaq-100 ETF (QQQ) | +0.25% | +0.35% | +0.31% | – | – | – |
Change from the 13:30 UK release. The ETFs are measured from the 14:30 UK open.
Reading through a distortion
When a number is bent by a known one-off, traders discount it. Here the reaction was small in every market. That fits the BLS's own guidance that the storms reduced the payroll count but had no visible effect on unemployment. The lesson for reading any report is to ask whether the surprise reflects the economy or the way it was measured.
The 2017 jobs reports show how little Bitcoin's moves that year depended on the data. After the March report, Bitcoin rose 8.6% in its first hour on ETF news. After September's, it rose 0.6%. After the December report, near the peak of the boom, it rose 4.4%. This report sits at the quiet end. What followed was not quiet at all: Bitcoin was +27% a week later, a move driven by the boom, not by jobs.
Sources: release time and figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain), first-print values via ALFRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Crypto: Bitstamp 5-minute candles; SPY/QQQ: IEX. No consensus forecasts are shown because they are proprietary; comparisons are with the previous release. “× normal hour” compares the first-hour move with the median move in matched quiet hours. How we measure it.