Trying to look for a silver lining in the latest job report, but it appears to be all gray. The ADP report is a precursor to the official government report. The last ADP report had pretty good numbers, but the government report that accompanied it was far more pessimistic. In this latest round, we don't even have the benefit of decent ADP numbers, to say nothing of what the next government job report holds. So it's apparent which way things are trending. We will, however, cling to something Brian Levitt, OppenheimerFunds's chief economist, told us last month:
"In December the government came out with an awfully low payroll number that certainly spooked the market and certainly had people raising their expectations of a recession. And very quietly that number got revised up significantly; it's one of those back page things. These employment numbers — they certainly do get revised."
