MacroScope

U.S. non-farm payrolls have come in below the Reuters Poll consensus for the past four months, the longest streak since an eight-month period in 2008-09 when the U.S. was in the depths of recession and, at one point, losing more than half a million jobs a month.

Compared with a few years ago when there was a very wild range of forecasts on a given jobs report — the widest spread polled since the financial crisis began was 575,000 for the May 2010 data — economists are now huddling together in a pessimistic pack.

For the July data, due out at 1230 GMT, the range of forecasts in the Reuters Poll (on a consensus of 100,000) has narrowed to a 107,000 spread between highest and lowest, compared with 132,000 for the June data.

A narrowing of that spread means either greater conviction that the data will be weak (only 80,000 jobs were created in June), or a weariness amongst forecasters of being undercut over and over again. More likely it’s a combination of the two.

Over the past two years, payrolls have come out weaker than the most pessimistic forecast polled five times while they have blown out the top end of the range only once.

It’s already been established that economists’ predictions about the euro zone’s future hinge largely on where their employer is based. Euro zone optimists tend to work for euro zone banks and research houses, and euro zone sceptics for companies based outside the currency union.

It somewhat undermined the idea their analyses are based purely on hard-headed economics, and less on national factors.

There was an echo of that in this week’s of economists and fixed income strategists, who were asked whether they expect euro zone leaders will agree to the issuance of a common euro zone bond, as backed by new French President Francois Hollande.

Despite all their years of experience and complex mathematical models, for economists the question of the euro zone’s survival really has them at the mercy of national bias… at least in terms of where their employer is based.

One of the key points from the latest Reuters poll was that a majority of economists from banks and research houses around the world – 37 out of 59 – expect the euro zone to survive in its current form for the next 12 months.

But behind that headline figure, the answers were skewed heavily by region.

Only 5 out of 24 economists from organisations based inside the euro zone thought it would fail to survive in its present 17-nation form over the next 12 months.

Europe’s economy is contracting at a steeper rate than most city economists recognise – and not for the first time.

While tiny Greece stole the headlines last week, a calamitous set of business surveys pointed to imminent recession for the enormous euro zone economy. Even a month ago, that was thought unlikely by most economists.

If city economists weren’t employed by global finance institutions, lots of them might make a living by closing barn doors after the horses have fled. Last week’s purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) were further proof of this.

As we’ve noted extensively, economists often get it wrong. Leaving aside their collective failure to recognise an impending global recession, you might recall a shock interest rate hike from the Bank of England in January 2007.

This was another event that almost every economist polled by Reuters failed to spot, and there are signs that four years on, economists might be setting themselves up for a similar shock.

The consensus from the last Reuters BoE poll last week showed interest rates would stay on hold into the fourth quarter, even though UK money markets have priced in a 100 percent chance of a rate hike by May. Since the January meeting, some of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee members have publicly stated their determination to fight strong inflation.

Anyone involved in financial markets on a day-to-day basis will be familiar with bits of jargon like “breaking the psychological barrier”, “passing key resistance levels,” and even “magic numbers”.

While academics might argue if such things exist, market players put a lot of weight (and money) on the way certain financial instruments, indexes and currencies seem to behave near a certain number – usually a round figure.

Economists, looking months and years into the future to predict the path of entire economies, could well declare themselves immune to the superstitions of daily market movements.

Reuters polls of economists over the last few weeks have come up with some pretty firm conclusions about both Ireland and Portugal needing a bailout from the European Union.

Portuguese 10-year government bond yields have hovered stubbornly above 7 percent since the Irish bailout announcement, hitting a euro-lifetime high and giving ammunition to those who say Lisbon will be forced into a bailout.

And of those who hold that view, it’s clear that bank economists have been most vocal in expecting Ireland and Portugal to seek outside help.

No question that investors are in the throes of passion over emerging markets. The latest Reuters asset allocation polls show investors pouring money into Asian and Latin American stocks in October to the detriment of U.S. and euro zone equities. Exposure to equities in emerging Europe, Asia ex-Japan, Latin America and Africa/Middle East rose to 15.6 percent of a typical stock portfolio from 14.3 percent a month earlier.