IT’S ALL IN THE SPIN!

July 30, 2004

News hit the street at 7:30 am Houston time today as it does on the first Friday of the new month. The new? Unemployment dropped from 6.4% to 6.2%. Hillary Kramer is then interviewed on Fox News saying how GREAT the news is. And, when Saddam is caught the market will rise another 500 points and maybe 1,000 points over a few days.

Are you excited? Don’t be!

More SPIN from Wall Street, sold to you by people who make a living off of selling you stock. Or sold to you by people with a vested interest in Wall Street. So, guess what. They are always spinning things as positive.

But, read the data again. Get beyond the headline statistic. There were 44,000 MORE jobs LOST in July. Economists had forecast a POSITIVE number, not a loss or negative one but everyone will be talking about how GREAT things are. To make matters worse, 470,000 (as in almost a half million) people got so discouraged that they abandoned job searches because they believed there were no jobs available.

So, the market opens in 35 minutes from the time I post this commentary. I wouldn’t go out and buy and stock right away- unless it’s gold stocks. Of course the spot gold price is down $2.50 as I write this but once again, that’s the headline story. The real story is just the opposite.