By Dominique Paul, Research Analyst

Historically, September has been a poor month for the market. However, today’s session has erased all gains observed in Thursday’s session. The downslide was brought on by two things, firstly, it’s a holiday weekend. Many investors and market observers have extended the three-day Labor Day weekend into a 4-day weekend. The major equity indices are moving lower on extremely light volume. Each are indicating declines of over 3% for this week.

However, the big issue stems from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) jobs report that was released this morning. The report was disappointing and leaves the questions about what the fed will do unanswered. 173,000 jobs were added to the market in August. This is a far cry from the 223,000 consensus estimate or the upwardly revised 245,000 (from 215,000) jobs added in July. Approximatly 6.5 million persons are employed part-time for economic reasons. Also, there are approximately 8 million unemployed persons in the labor market, however, the labor force participation rate came in at 62.6% for the third time in a row. There was an increase in both the average workweek and average hourly earnings for all employees, +0.28% and +0.32%, respectively.

Please note, because of the Labor Day Holiday, the markets will be closed on Monday, September 7^th. There will not be any commentary provided on that date.

We are not forcing the issue this afternoon.