The Revisions
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised June up 11,000, from +20,000 to +31,000, and July from a reported loss of 23,000 to a gain of 21,000. Combined, the two prior months are 55,000 stronger than they were on Thursday.
The Chart
Bitcoin opened near $81,272, matching Wednesday's close, and printed a session high of $81,392. After the 8:30 a.m. ET release it sold through $80,000. The first heavy five-minute candle took it into the high $79,600s. Price then chopped roughly $79,400–$79,700 before a second leg down. The session low printed $78,645. By mid-to-late morning it was near $78,874, down about $2,400 from Wednesday's close. The first leg cleaned out leveraged longs, and spot traded through the same flush because that is how the venues are wired.
The Fed
A strong print only helps if you wanted the Fed to ease. Inflation already hit 4.2% in May, a three-year high, with the Iran conflict doing real work on gasoline. The funds rate is around 3.6%. After this number, the market is treating a September hike toward 3.9% as a live option instead of a cut. TD Economics said Fed futures assigned a higher chance of a September increase. Warsh does not have to move on one payrolls release. He does have less room to argue the labor market needs accommodation.
Kevin Warsh took the chair on May 22. He has answered White House pressure the same way each time, in public, without naming the president. In Sintra on July 1 he said the Fed has been independent for a very long time, it will be independent now, and there will be no change in that approach.
The President
Trump has been working the other side of that sentence for months. In early July he said Warsh was dealing with a board that is "maybe a little bit hostile" and wants to "do the wrong thing." On August 31 he called Warsh "a great guy and a great pro," added that he knows where Warsh would like to be, and finished with the familiar hedge: Warsh "has to do what he has to do."
Today he stopped hedging. At 9:41 a.m. ET, a little more than an hour after the release, he posted on Truth Social that the number beat "all estimates (except mine!) by double and triple," then left the jobs report behind: "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT," citing the Supreme Court's tariff decision as giving him that right. He told the board, under its "great new leader," to "get smart" and "BE PATRIOTS for a change." A president usually takes a victory lap on 162,000 jobs. This one used the same morning to threaten a trade cutoff and to lean on his own Fed chair. (CNBC, Reuters)
The Takeaway
Bitcoin still has to clear the same pipes as everything else: a BLS print, leveraged books, and whatever hits Truth Social an hour later. The drop to $78,645 was longs getting run over in minutes, and the cash market followed the liquidation.
Warsh now has a market that sold risk on good economic news and a president who treated that same news as proof the Fed is failing him. Nothing in today's report supports a cut. The tape spent the session pricing the payrolls and the hike odds ahead of the phone calls. Into the weekend the live question is whether September follows that data or the pressure campaign that started before the ink on the release was dry.
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Bureau of Labor Statistics
ZeroHedge
TD Economics
CNBC
Reuters
TradingView
This is market commentary, not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Do your own research.
