If traders have a feeling that there is a prevailing sense of blase disenchantment involving not only US macro data but the overall market, they are not alone. Here is arguably the best, and thus most cynical take, of Friday's impressive seasonal adjustment factor payrolls report, from Citi's Brent Donnelly:
Summer apathy and generally high frustration levels related to poor returns, extreme bearishness and existential questions around the death of price discovery due to central bank meddling.
Fed credibility is near zero so a strong number doesn’t matter much. This Fed is not going to hike two months before an election where the Republican candidate is seen by many as unfit to lead. So NFP doesn’t matter much. This drop in Fed credibility is borne out in the price action as you have probably noticed that the market doesn’t react at all to Fed commentary anymore (see Lockhart and Evans recently). This is in bright contrast to sharp market moves on Fedspeak pre-2016 (when Fed words were thought to be correlated to future Fed actions).
Well, the market may not react to Fed commentary, but it most certainly still reacts to central bank liquidity injections. If and when that changes, try not to be the last to sell.
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