Friday, October 3, 2014

Econo-Quickie: Good News is Now Good News

This is a bit of an experiment today with my blog. Usually I stick to my long and boring Tuesday posting . Today I am seeing how you will respond to an off-cycle quickie. Charles -- no wise cracks.

Anyway, I was taken by the fact that the employment release this morning was strong -- employment grew more than expected and the nation's unemployment rate fell below 6% for the first time since some of you were wearing short pants.

In the recent past such "good" news was taken as a bad sign for the stock market. That's because good economic news might cause the Fed to quit holding interest rates down. And rising interest rates are thought to be bad for the market. But yikes. As I type the market is almost up 1% and some of the talking heads are saying stocks are rising because of good employment  news. So my question to you is -- if good news used to be bad news -- then why is good news now taken as good news?

Aren't we having fun? :-)

2 comments:

  1. Could the explanation be part of "the new normal" effect?

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    Replies
    1. If good news is good news then the new normal sounds like good news.

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