US jobs data

After the numbers came out last Friday much lower than was expected and shocked the markets, thought I would look at the figures
http://www.bls.gov/home.htm

It seems to me that there is always a dip mid year around this time and also a bigger dip around Christmas/New Year.

If this it the case why then did they 'expect' what they did when normally figures dip at this time of year?

It is better to be more interested in the markets reaction to new information than the piece of news itself. And prehaps if that data wasn't there on the day, then the market would have fallen on another piece of data percieved as negative.

On the short term daytrading viewpoint yes agreed, but on the longer term then if the markets were presented with facts that would mislead then in the longer term, knowing the figures is more useful

BTW the total non farm employees number is not far off its all time high since 94

Im not a short term day trader so thats not my viewpoint. IMHO if the market wants to fall it uses the news as a justification of their trading action. The news is associated to the drop, and your example just shows u how irrational the markets are. The market could have viewed the data as positive if the sentiment was different. Like for example in the opposite: when a bear market flushes out and becomes immune to negative news, its mainly about perception i think

Yes I agree with that, but why would expectation be high if that is not the norm for the time of year, unless it was meant to distort market ideas, it would be easy to disappoint and drive the market lower by a comparative under achievement