So, let's start first by what obsessed investors in U.S. markets: the non-farm payroll, that already "pushed back" the expectations of the Federal Reserve interest hike. Don't know why, but this panicing markets seems to be always there. So, the unemployment rate stays at 5.1% on NFP, with +142,000 more "non-farm" jobs in September. That's less than the ~200,000 jobs expected by some analysts. Few details, 16.3% of teenagers are unemployed, meanwhile it's 4.7% for adult men & 4.6% for adult womens. The number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons did a -447,000 perons to be down to 6 million in September. I hope you find it interesting.
The larger problem: http://www.bullmarketboard.com/thre...tion-Rate-Drops-to-Low-Last-Seen-October-1977
To be honest, I wouldn't have expected something else from you: you take the negative number approving your theory. Me, I take the numbers often tracked down publicly by analysts, and few others numbers I find worth to take a look on. Their interpretation is as important as the fact of disclosing it altogether. In my opinion, I wouldn't put the alarm on the U.S. economy and this is basically what you are doing on the other thread and it is exactly why I thought I wouldn't agree with you. Is that a big problem? No, but once again the fact part-time involuntary worker goes lower means basically full-time workers are getting higher, or at least people gets more satisfied with their jobs. Why thinking otherwise?
I don't look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Massaged seasonally-adjusted statistics from this administration are, in my book, suspect for the social engineering transformational efforts coming from the White House and its czars. In any case, in my opinion, the labor participation rate is an ignored measure that, in fact, should be part of the dataset reported by the business media. Flattened incomes and a fulltime work week measured with a 3 handle doesn't excite me.
Yeah, the best way to look at data is to look at it ALL with cold, hard, detached realism. To be neither optimistic nor pessimistic - to be realistic, and go from there. It's not Monopoly money you're playing with. With that said, it's generally best for most small retail investors not to get too obsessed over the short term data either way, and stay the course.
Okay, labor participation rate (LBR). You search for people which is economically active, getting lower. The reason is why? Why do you think there's less people economically active. Think about it. You can be not in the LBR because maybe there's more retired people, or maybe there's more students, and so on. Did you taken the time to watch if, you adjust by looking with or without students, with or without the retired people, if there's something interesting? That's why, I guess, this metric isn't looked at that much. Because without further reading, to me, it means not so much. So, who has the glasses now? I take on account what people thinks when I'm doing investments, since people's behavior changes the investment you might want to do (take the biotech example). That doesn't automatically mean that I agree with the moods I expect to behave with.