Yes, the strong gain of 204K jobs may have been distorted by the government shutdown. And indeed, there will be a cleaner NFP report for November before the next Fed decision on December 18th. We will also get revisions of the strong but suspicious GDP report for Q3. Nevertheless, there are a few positive points in this report which strengthen the case for QE tapering in December, and strengthen the dollar. As counting of government jobs was distorted, we can focus on private sector jobs. Here, a gain of 212K was recorded. This is not "strong growth" just yet, but it could be classified as sustainable. In addition, ... (full story)