Labor

With Wall Street expecting a 178K payrolls print for president Obama's final full monthly December jobs report, the headline December nonfarm payrolls increase of just 156K is likely to disappoint. However, the poor December number will likely be offset by a revision to the November print from 178K to 204K, even as October was revised downward from 142K to 135K, for a net revision of the past two months to 19K higher.

For all of 2016, job growth totaled 2.2 million for the year, less than the increase of 2.7 million in 2015.

With all eyes likely on wage growth indications in the subtext of tomorrow's payrolls report (following The Fed Minutes' comments on full employment), Goldman Sachs is forecasting a better-than-expected 0.3% rebound in average hourly earnings (helped by more favorable calendar effects) and a better-than-expected 180k payrolls print (albeit with a small rise in the unemployment rate). However, they are careful to note that any downside can be blamed on "a considerable drop in temperatures."

As Goldman Sachs details:

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Profits are faltering for structural reasons that are not easily resolved..

The bedrock assumption of the Bull market is that corporate profits will keep rising indefinitely. Hiccups are allowed, but current stock market valuations are implicitly based on profits expanding.

According to a lawsuit filed in L.A. Superior Court by former employee Anthony Pompliano, Snapchat has been faking its growth numbers in order to boost its value in an upcoming IPO.  Pompliano, Snapchat's "growth lead", says he was hired away from his position at Facebook to provide confidential and proprietary information about Facebook's systems and was subsequently fired, after only three weeks on the job, for  blowing the whistle on the company’s growth misrepresentations with several higher-ups.  Per Variety:

Back in September, we noted that, in a surprisingly logical decision particularly for a state like California which is typically devoid of all reason, a court upheld the rights of Marin County (and it's taxpayers) to reduce final year salary levels utilized to calculate pension payments.  The ruling was meant to protect taxpayers against "salary spiking," a practice whereby union employees artificially drive up their final year salary, by taking cash vacation payouts or 1x bonus payments for example, in an effort to game the annual pension payment they'll then receive in perpetuity.