U.S. Payrolls, Including Private Sector Data, Beat Expectations

U.S. payrolls data for August beat expectations, and that has many excited about the prospect of the jobs situation finally getting ready to turn around. Additionally, July's data was revised to the positive, providing even more excitement about the U.S. economy. GFT's Kathy Lien reports in FX360 on the latest jobs data out of the U.S.:

Non-farm payrolls fell by only 54k in August, compared to the forecast for 105k job losses.  The July figure was revised higher from -131k to -54k.  Private sector payrolls rose 67k against a 40k forecast with the July number revised up from 71k to 107k. Excluding Census workers, August payrolls increased by 60k.  Cutbacks forced government workers to slash 121k jobs last month but U.S. corporations picked up the slack.  The only black mark in the report was the unemployment rate which rose from 9.5 to 9.6 percent. 

The news has the markets abuzz. U.S. stock futures jumped higher on the news. After managing to pull out a solid performance yesterday, spread betting and contracts for differences should consider that the U.S. stock market is poised for a serious rally today.