No-Show Jobs
More than 900,000 jobs never existed... What it means for the market... Watch for inflation (again)... Stagflation is in the mix, too... AI's secret fuel... The 'new oil' needed for a revolution... More gold talk...
'Poof!' go the jobs again...
Today was that time of year again... As part of its annual "benchmark revision" exercise, the Bureau of Labor Statistics "revised" the number of new jobs it says were added to the U.S. economy in the 12-month period ending in March.
The agency does this every year. Some years, the numbers end up looking better, and sometimes worse. This time, it has cut the number of new jobs created from April 2024 to March 2025 by 911,000.
That's a lot of what Tony Soprano could have called "no-show jobs"... And it means the labor market is much weaker than Uncle Sam told us.
Originally, the government reported close to 2 million new jobs over those 12 months. Now, roughly half of those have suddenly vanished from the record. It's not unlike a mob racket after all.
It's even worse than last year. That's when, as we also reported, the number of jobs added from April 2023 to March 2024 was later slashed by 818,000... or 30% of the 2.9 million jobs originally reported. As we wrote last August...
Without getting too far in the weeds, this is a yearly thing the government does after it looks at state unemployment-insurance tax records and applies its findings retroactively to its monthly "nonfarm payroll" survey data.
Last year, the change also lowered America's total nonfarm payrolls by 0.5%, the largest change in this way since 2009. This year was even more extreme, meaning that total employment in the U.S. was 0.6% less than the initial estimates.
This 'revision' is basically rewriting history, year after year...
Wall Street tends to hang on these monthly nonfarm numbers, even as they're based on dwindling survey responses. Today's report proves to me (Corey McLaughlin), once again, that they should be taken with a grain of salt.
But, to no surprise... perception based on surveys and instant gratification still moves the market more than the reality of more accurate, more slowly generated numbers. While today's report got attention from truth-seeking market observers, the effect on the market itself appeared muted.
The benchmark indexes didn't move much when the numbers came out this morning, and the S&P 500 Index finished the day up 0.3%.
That's because these jobs-number revisions are from the past. And as we discussed yesterday, investors are focused on the present and future.
Plus, the updates fit with the current trend. Right now, the labor market is weakening, even by the current numbers and surveys.
And, as the market has focused on, this will likely lead the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its meeting next week.
The question now is by how much...
The market expects 25 basis points, based on the federal-funds futures market. The market is putting less than a 10% chance of 50 basis points right now.
Still, a pair of inflation reports comes tomorrow and Thursday – the producer price index ("PPI") and consumer price index ("CPI"). That could change the picture.
If inflation for August comes in relatively low or even flat, the Fed could more easily cut rates... stimulating the labor market without worrying so much about inflation. Outside of declining GDP joining the mix, that's as strong a case for Fed cuts as you can get.
But if inflation numbers come in "hot," a bigger rate cut is unlikely. It would instead point to the dreaded "s-word." As our Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond wrote today...
With PPI and CPI coming out this week any big surprise to the upside would certainly give pause to an aggressive rate-cut cycle from the Federal Reserve because of one thing...
Stagflation.
A declining labor market with rising inflation puts the Federal Reserve in a tough spot.
I'm not claiming this is going to be the case, but it is something to consider.
We looked at interest rates yesterday and despite this report of a massive revision lower in jobs – interest rates are UP on the day.
Not something you would expect to see if the market was pricing in huge interest rate cuts on the horizon.
If PPI and CPI come in lower then yes, this likely gives the green light for more cuts, but almost everyone is expecting this outcome and when everyone is piled into the same trade it usually doesn't end well.
We'll see, but this could be a trigger for volatility on the horizon.
But here's some better news... The world keeps on spinning, and there are still investment opportunities to be had – confusing jobs numbers or not. Here's Nick with another one to close things out today...
This morning's big news from the mining sector...
Last night, miners Anglo American (NGLOY) and Teck Resources (TECK) announced a "merger of equals" to create a massive combined company in the mining sector.
This is a huge deal from the mining sector. The combined company – for now being called Anglo Teck – would have a market cap of more than $50 billion.
While both companies have diversified mining portfolios covering a few metals, this deal has one purpose. And that's to build a copper giant...
In the first half of 2025, 60% of Anglo American's business was copper, with the rest coming from iron ore. Copper also made up 61% of Teck's revenue in 2024, with zinc accounting for the rest. The combined company targets an increase to 70% exposure to copper.
Altogether, the companies said that Anglo Teck would be the fifth-largest copper miner in the world... and the second-largest that's publicly traded. There's a clear reason that this deal is getting done now and has such a focus on the companies' copper assets.
Artificial intelligence needs copper...
When President Donald Trump announced tariffs on copper imports in July, we explained how it's a critical commodity for conducting electricity.
That makes copper important for just about every industry – from electronics to power generation and even construction. As we wrote in the July 10 Digest...
We use a lot of it here in the U.S. Last year, the U.S. consumed about 1.6 million metric tons of copper. That put us just behind China in terms of total copper consumption.
But with AI, we're going to need a whole lot more. As Commodity Supercycles editor Whitney Tilson explained in last night's issue, data centers can't get enough copper. From Whitney...
A conventional data center might use between 5,000 tons and 15,000 tons of copper. The most advanced hyperscale AI data centers can use tens of thousands of tons of copper per facility.
That means that AI data centers could require double the amount of copper that a traditional data center would. And that's going to add up to a lot more demand. More from Whitney...
Commodity research firm BloombergNEF ("BNEF") expects copper demand from new data centers to average around 400,000 metric tons ("MT") a year over the next decade and peak at 572,000 MT in 2028.
At the low end, that's a 25% boost from the U.S.'s 2024 copper consumption. At the high end, it'll cause demand to surge 36%. That's huge growth in just a handful of years.
And it creates an incredible opportunity for companies in the sector and investors.
Teck and Anglo American see the chance here to become a huge copper producer and supply the AI boom.
But they're not the only ones seeing the potential in copper...
Whitney and his team have identified a small company that's about to see a surge in production, is set to profit from the "new oil" fueling today's AI revolution, and is trading at a steal today.
Whitney's paid Commodity Supercycles subscribers and Stansberry Alliance members can read last night's issue and get the name and ticker of this top pick right here.
And if you don't have access and are interested, click here to learn more about the opportunities in energy Whitney and team have identified as AI demand continues to surge... and get started with a subscription to Supercycles today.
New 52-week highs (as of 9/8/25): ABB (ABBNY), Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM), Alamos Gold (AGI), Allegion (ALLE), Valterra Platinum (ANGPY), Atour Lifestyle (ATAT), Atmus Filtration Technologies (ATMU), Broadcom (AVGO), AutoZone (AZO), Barrick Mining (B), iShares MSCI BIC Fund (BKF), Ciena (CIEN), WisdomTree Japan SmallCap Dividend Fund (DFJ), Dimensional International Small Cap Value Fund (DISV), EnerSys (ENS), Equinox Gold (EQX), Cambria Emerging Shareholder Yield Fund (EYLD), Franklin FTSE Japan Fund (FLJP), Franco-Nevada (FNV), VanEck Gold Miners Fund (GDX), VanEck Junior Gold Miners Fund (GDXJ), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), iShares Convertible Bond Fund (ICVT), iRhythm Technologies (IRTC), Kinross Gold (KGC), KraneShares CSI China Internet Fund (KWEB), Match Group (MTCH), New Gold (NGD), Annaly Capital Management (NLY), Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI), OR Royalties (OR), O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY), Pan American Silver (PAAS), Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS), Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV), Construction Partners (ROAD), Roku (ROKU), Sandstorm Gold (SAND), Skeena Resources (SKE), iShares Silver Trust (SLV), SSR Mining (SSRM), TKO Group (TKO), Torex Gold Resources (TORXF), Uranium Energy (UEC), ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL), Valero Energy (VLO), Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities (VTIP), and Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM).
In today's mailbag, more thoughts stemming from Dan's latest Friday Digest... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"'The pioneers get the arrows, and the settlers get the gold'. Maybe it's time Stansberry started talking about gold again. When I joined the Stansberry readership in 2015, all the talk was about gold and its protective value for the imminent massive stock market crash that has yet to materialize. I took this to heart and purchased some fairly large positions in a number of gold and other mineral extractive and royalty companies. Now daily, I look to the bottom of the Stansberry Digest and see many familiar names making new highs, mining companies I own. Yet now all the preceding articles talk about is AI, blah blah blah, the Fed, blah blah blah, jobs numbers, blah blah blah..." – Subscriber David D.
Corey McLaughlin comment: David, thanks for the note. First, I would say we've seen a few big drawdowns in stocks since 2015... Having gold and related companies in a well-diversified portfolio would have served folks well over the past decade – and today...
As you allude to, several open recommendations related to gold from our team have been making new one-year highs lately. And gold itself is trading at an all-time high in dollars and other major global currencies, as we pointed out last week.
We've been making the case for gold for years – this argument in August 2024 includes a lot of the details that still apply today. Frankly, I've thought we were writing too much about gold lately, but maybe that's not the case.
So let me repeat that the technical outlook for gold is very appetizing right now. The precious metal has broken out of a consolidation in the past few months. And the fundamental case remains as compelling as it did when we wrote this last August...
There are at least three fundamental catalysts that support a bullish case for the centuries-old store of value...
- The threat of escalating war in the Middle East and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Simply put, more developments in these wars could lead to further "shocks" for stocks and send investors into "safe haven" assets like gold or bonds.
- It looks like the Federal Reserve is comfortable returning to "business as usual" and will lower interest rates. This isn't that long after the economy endured a 40-year-high rate of inflation (and still-rising prices). Cheaper dollars means rising prices for dollar-denominated assets... like gold.
Other central banks are also buying gold as a way to hedge against the dollar... to the tune of more than 1,000 tonnes in each of the past two years.
- Campaign promises from the U.S. presidential candidates to "fight" inflation. We've seen this story before... The proposed policies, in one way or another, will only exacerbate U.S. debt and inflation, and certainly won't get to the root of the problem: fiat currency and money printing.
All three of those points are still playing out... and there's not an end in sight yet.
To that end, you can learn more about what some say is "the golden age of gold investing" – and a little-known investment that takes advantage of it – in this free presentation. (Again, existing Commodity Supercycles subscribers and Alliance members already have this information.)
Lastly, all that said, AI and jobs numbers are worth attention too for various reasons, like we discussed above... with the latter mattering because a weakening jobs market is likely leading to Fed rate cuts.
And as I've written recently, lower interest rates are one more case for... gold and gold stocks.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin and Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
September 9, 2025