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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB90737074435750000\nEconomy and Policy\nWith Much to Atone For, Economists Fess Up; Ultimate Irony: Labor Day Trims Employment\nGene Epstein\nUpdated Oct. 5, 1998 12:01 am ET / Original Jan. 20, 2020 12:43 am ET\nM y biggest sin was that I missed the bond rally, but my customers didn't -- and if you want me to say my customers are smarter than I am, I could lose my job.\"\nThat strictly anonymous confession marked an auspicious beginning to my first Yom Kippur Telephone Poll, otherwise known as my Day-of-Atonement Survey, inspired by the holiday last Wednesday. But instead of asking Street economists whether or not they forgave Bill Clinton his sins, my two-part question was:\n\"What sins, if any, do you feel you have to atone for in your professional capacity?\" and, \"What sins, if any, do you feel others of your trade should atone for -- individuals, institutions or groups?\"\nEspecially Timely\nIn this year of Monicagate, not to mention Long-Term-Capitalgate, both queries seemed especially timely.\nNever one to fear employer retribution, Morgan Stanley chief economist Steve Roach owned up to an even worse sin, admitting unabashedly that his \"interest-rate call got the order of magnitude right, it's just that I had the wrong sign,\" an irreverent reference to his errant forecast that U.S. Treasury yields would rise rather than fall.\nRoach has a sin to pin on those economists who subscribe to the New Paradigm -- which in his words is \"the touching belief that bull markets are forever.\" He also predicts a descent into sin on the part of the New Deflationists -- those economists who currently foresee a fall in the general price level. \"The Deflationists are going to go the way of the Paradigmers,\" says Roach.\nIan Shepherdson, formerly of HSBC Markets and soon to join High Frequency Economics as chief U.S. economist, allowed: \"We forecasters have to atone for the mistaken view that the U.S. is an island unto itself. We saw the storm brewing in Asia and we sat back in our garden chairs as though we were economically independent. That isn't true anymore, however much it might have applied to the world of 30 years ago.\"\nOn a similar note, in an E-mail response, Regional Financial Associates' chief economist Mark Zandi declares: \"I most need to atone for overestimating the willingness and ability of policymakers to respond to the deepening economic crisis -- and the economics profession needs to atone for underestimating its role in contributing to it.\"\nDKB Securities chief economist Philip Braverman scored an accurate call on the decline in interest rates, and he welcomes last week's cut in the federal funds rate. But he does believe the easing represented that cardinal sin of omission -- too little, too late. \"Greenspan & Co. should have cut rates a year ago,\" he asserts. \"Even then it should have been plain that the dangers of deflation were far greater than the bogeyman of inflation.\"\nNorthern Trust Co. chief domestic economist Paul L. Kasriel claims credit for \"correctly identifying the epicenter of the global economic earthquake -- Japan,\" but seeks to atone for \"underestimating the magnitude of this earthquake on the economic Richter scale.\" He also believes that \"policymakers in Japan should seek forgiveness for the severe recession their constituents have had to suffer by their failing to get the broad money supply growing in a 6%-8% annual range and for moving toward fiscal restraint in 1997.\"\nIsraeli economist Mike Astrachan finds the same fault with Japan's policymakers and extends the similar charges to their counterparts around the world. For related perverse and destructive practices, he includes the governments of Europe for pursuing fiscal austerity in the face of double-digit unemployment, all because of the need to prepare for economic and monetary union. He also blames the IMF for forcing Asian countries to hike interest rates -- and for probably intimidating Brazil into doing the same. Closer to home, he faults the Bank of Israel on similar grounds.\nBack on this turf, my own personal bout of breast-beating would include regret over an ill-timed and ill-conceived column I wrote not long ago on why the overall stock market's price/earnings ratio may not be as high as it looks. While I had the germ of a good idea, I took it way too far, such that my conclusions became toxic, as a number of readers patiently explained to me.\nI also wrote a four-part series on What the Computer Hath Wrought without bothering to define what I meant by the use of that buzzphrase, information technology (IT). And to make matters worse, I promised a fifth installment that has been a long time in coming. But it will appear (almost) definitely next week, complete with a definition of IT. Meanwhile, those who missed the first four pieces can E-mail me for copies.\nO kay, the September jobs report that was issued Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't look great, but just for the sake of the unfolding historical record, BLS Commissioner Katherine G. Abraham's statement that employment rose only \"slightly\" needs to be corrected.\nMore than likely, employment rose much more than slightly, which means the economy isn't as weak as the official figure makes it look. While the report said that nonfarm payrolls expanded by only 69,000 between August and September, the real increase might have been as high as 159,000. That is at least respectable, even by the super-high standards of the recent past.\nThe problem, uncovered by both Wrightson Associates chief economist Lou Crandall and John Liscio of the Liscio Report, involves one of those calendar quirks that occasionally plagues data-gathering of this kind. Liscio calls it the Labor Day Effect, and if you don't mind some jobs lore -- are you listening, Ms. Abraham? -- here's how it works.\nThis year Labor Day came quite late, on September 7, which must have depressed reported job gains artificially. At least, Crandall finds that in both 1987 and '92, the last two years with September 7 Labor Days, the BLS also found that payrolls expanded at a way-below-trend rate for that particular month. Now, you can choose to believe that employers get cranky whenever this holiday arrives so late, and therefore decide to cut back on hiring. But more plausibly, the late Labor Day somehow causes the Bureau of Labor Statistics to under-report the hiring that's really going on.\nThe likely explanation has to do with the fact that in the week after Labor Day, a lot of new hires tend to begin working. And given the standard custom of putting people on the payroll a good week after they start, for many of them the September 7 Labor Day must have meant that the pay period began after the 12th of the month. When the BLS gathers its data, however, it tells employers that the 12th day of each month must be included in a worker's pay period for those workers to be counted. Had Labor Day come earlier, many of these people probably would have been paid by the 12th. This year, as in 1987 and '92, all these new hires likely got overlooked. Based on those prior years, Crandall estimates that the undercount could run as much as 90,000 -- which, as noted, means that the reported increase of 69,000 could be masking an actual gain of 159,000. If all those extra folks got on board just after Labor Day, the October jobs report should reflect it. So, wait 'til next month for the true picture.\nW hich isn't to say there's nothing to worry about.\nThe chart on this page, for one, worries me. It shows that, even though consumers continue to believe current conditions are great, they're markedly lowering their assessment of future conditions. This was evident in the drop in the Conference Board's index of consumer expectations, reported Wednesday, and the decline was confirmed by the University of Michigan's own monthly survey, reported Friday.\nStudies show that when these expectations indexes decline, growth in consumption slows. And consumption lately has been the main engine of economic growth generally.\ngene.epstein@news.barrons.com\nM y biggest sin was that I missed the bond rally, but my customers didn't -- and if you want me to say my customers are smarter than I am, I could lose my job."

ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-s-p-500-goes-nowhere-after-its-big-runup-51548462969\nThe S&P 500 Goes Nowhere After Its Big Runup\nBen Levisohn\nPhotographed by Spencer Platt/Getty Images\nWhat do you do after you have the best start to a year since 1987? If you’re the S&P 500, you take a break.\nThe broad-market index dipped 0.2%, to 2664.76 last week, ending a four-week winning streak that saw it gain 11%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 30.85 points, or 0.1%, to 24,737.20, while the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 0.1%, to 7,164.86.\nStocks were buffeted by bad news—the continued trade standoff between the U.S. and China and downbeat headlines from Davos, among them—and good, including solid earnings from companies like Texas Instruments (ticker: TXN), and a report that the Federal Reserve was considering whether to stop shrinking its balance sheet. “There was a little digestion this week,” says Brad Neuman, director of market strategy at Alger.\nThe market clearly has an easier time digesting some issues more than others. When news broke on Friday that a deal to end the government shutdown had been reached, the market...did almost nothing. That’s likely because the market never bothered to price it in. The S&P 500’s 10% rise since the shutdown began is the best performance during such an event since at least 1976.\n“People deserve to get paid,” says Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. “[But the market] views this as more of a political fight than an economic one.”\nIn fact, some suggest that the shutdown’s end could be bad news for the market. The reason: It’s one less problem for the Fed to worry about and could mean that monetary policy doesn’t get dialed back quite as much as the market likes. “While one uncertainty will be removed, it will remove some pressure on the Fed,” writes Andrew Brenner of NatAlliance Securities.\nNot that there aren’t other pressures coming to bear on the central bank. Global economic growth is slowing, trade remains an overhang, and analysts are busy cutting their 2019 earnings estimates, which are now forecast to grow by just over 6%, down from more than 10% last September. “It’s tough to make an argument for tightening policy into 2019, given what’s happening on the economic front,” says Charlie Ryan, portfolio manager at Evercore Wealth Management.\nMore in The Trader\nTroubled Insurer AmTrust to Delist Preferred Stock\nThe Great Plastic Cleanup — and How to Profit From It\nThe S&P 500’s 19.8% drop from its September 2018 high to its Christmas Eve low showed the market was expecting a lot of bad news—and maybe even a recession. Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, notes that such declines have generally been buying opportunities, as long as the economy keeps growing. The S&P 500 has averaged a 32% gain following the previous seven such downturns, though Lee sees the index gaining just 6% from here.\nOf course, the market has already made back a big chunk of its December losses. The S&P 500 has gained 13.3% from the Dec. 24 low—and the size and speed of the rally appears to have startled investors. That gain means that the easy money has been made, but valuations suggest more upside, Citi’s Levkovich says. Historically, when the S&P 500 trades at a trailing price/earnings ratio between 16 and 18, as it does now, it gains a median 9% over the next 12 months. “If the concerns moderate, stocks could and should move higher,” he says.\nWe’d be happy to take that—or even less.\nWrite to Ben Levisohn at Ben.Levisohn@barrons.com\nWhat do you do after you have the best start to a year since 1987? If you’re the S&P 500, you take a break."