Headline unemployment rate creates dollar shocker
By Andrew Wilkinson
06 November 2009 @ 10:49 am EDT
We're not quite sure what all the fuss is about this morning when it comes to splicing and dicing the non-farm payrolls report. A 10.2% headline national rate of unemployment - the first in 26 years grabbed attention upon the announcement and created an avalanche of currency selling in favor of the dollar by investors. And how wrong they were! The actual payroll decline of 190,000 might have been 15,000 more than analysts were primed for but it was only the second time since August 2008 that employers shed less than 200,000 jobs in a single month.