The U.S. Economy Just Delivered Bad News. History Says It Could Be Good News for the S&P 500.
A weak jobs number just popped the S&P 500. The longer-term picture is more complicated.
Overview
The U.S. economy just got a terrible-looking number.
The September non-farm payroll report showed an addition of just 29,000 jobs during the month, well below expectations for a gain of 90,000. On top of that, both July and August numbers were revised lower. July was actually revised down to a 10,000 job contraction, the fourth month in the past 12 that job growth was negative.
Details
But investors responded to that bad news by buying stocks. On Oct. 2, the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) closed up 0.7% while the Nasdaq-100 added 1%. While the number was bad from an economic standpoint, it was good from a market standpoint because it lowered expectations that the Fed would hike rates again in October.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.