Recaps · US payrolls (NFP) · 7 May 2021, 13:30 UK
The big miss
Forecasters expected the reopening economy to add about a million jobs in April 2021. It added 266,000. A miss that size meant the Fed would keep its support in place for longer, and Bitcoin rose. The week that followed was a different story, and it had nothing to do with jobs.
- Release
- Friday 7 May 2021, 13:30 UK
- Payrolls
- +266,000 vs about 1 million expected (CNBC)
- Unemployment
- 6.1%, up from 6.0%
- March
- Revised to 770,000
- Bitcoin at release
- $56,560
The numbers
NBC News reported that some analysts had expected gains above 2 million. One economist called it "one of the most disappointing jobs reports of all time". Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said one month's data should never be taken as a trend. Reuters reported that the Fed's Thomas Barkin said the gain was "nowhere near" what was expected, and that super-easy policy was likely to stay.
A quick move up
- 1 13:45 UK: about +1.5%
- 2 17:15 UK: high, about +2.7%
Bitcoin rose +0.69% in five minutes and +1.50% in fifteen, then drifted. It was +1.21% at the hour, #19 of 117 jobs reports at 2.6 times a normal hour, and about 2.7% up at 17:15 UK. Chainlink rose +5.8% in four hours, while XRP fell -4.7%. The S&P 500 ETF was +0.54%.
| Market | 15m | 1h | 4h | 24h | 1w | × normal hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | +1.50% | +1.21% | +1.99% | +3.65% | −10.86% | 2.6× |
| Ethereum | +1.33% | +1.73% | +2.92% | +2.99% | +15.57% | 2.9× |
| XRP | −0.78% | −1.85% | −4.69% | −5.61% | −16.42% | 2.6× |
| Chainlink | +1.53% | +3.00% | +5.81% | +1.36% | −3.77% | 4.2× |
| S&P 500 ETF (SPY) | +0.20% | +0.54% | +0.38% | – | – | – |
Change from the 13:30 UK release. The ETF is measured from the 14:30 UK open.
The week after
Bitcoin was -10.9% a week later, while Ether was +15.6%. Two things happened in between. The April CPI report on 12 May came in hot, and Bitcoin fell 1.3% in its first hour. The same day, Tesla said it would stop accepting Bitcoin for cars because of the energy used in mining, and Reuters reported that Bitcoin fell more than 10% after Elon Musk's tweet. The jobs report's gain was gone within days.
The next report, on 4 June, also came in below forecasts, and Bitcoin rose 2.9% in its first hour. In spring 2021, weaker jobs news meant easier money for longer, and crypto treated it as good news. The lesson from this week is that a clean reaction to data can be wiped out quickly by news from inside crypto. The first hour told you how traders read the report; it told you nothing about the week.
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.