Well, in the “why do they do this any more” department, we have the ADP private employment survey, which predates the official US DoL figures by all of 2 days, saying that private payrolls will increase by a rather unimpressive 42 thousand.

The total figure will be much worse, of course, since the US Census is still shedding the temporary workers they hired for their 2010 enumeration.

On the GDP front, it appears that the inventory data which contributed to a large portion of recent GDP gains was wildly over optimistic.

On the other hand, the Institute for Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing index rose in July rose to 54.3 from 53.8, beating expectations, in June, and mortgage applications, including purchase applications, rose again.