Employment Data Hurts Wall Street

November 5, 2008

Private-sector payrolls in the U.S. shed 157,000 jobs in October according to a Wednesday report, which took the wind out of Wall Street's sails despite the climax of the presidential election. And as lofty as President-elect Obama's plans for change are, investors came back to earth as they were reminded of the realities of our current economic crisis.

The payroll report is just another indication that the economy weakened substantially last month in the wake of the credit crisis and meltdown in the housing sector. Service industries lost 31,000 jobs in October, while goods-producing industries cut 126,000 jobs, including 85,000 in manufacturing, according to the ADP employment report.  
And the bad job news for the week is probably not over, with the payroll numbers coming out right before Friday's scheduled release of nonfarm payroll growth from the Labor Department–which is expected to post job losses of 210,000.

It's true that a vote won't change anything in the near-term–Obama won't take office until January, and the problems with consumer spending and foreclosures didn't go away overnight. But I remain confident that the worst of this mess is over, and now is the time to buy. I recently published my November issue of Emerging Growth, where I told subscribers that we are on the cusp of a tremendous seasonal bounce thanks to a variety of factors. This could very well be the greatest buying opportunity of our lifetimes!

So don't let today's dip get you down. Thanks to the stability from the presidential election and the thawing of the credit crisis, we have our best days ahead of us.