Morningstar Economist Expects 150,000-200,000 New Jobs For December

Morningstar Chief Economist Bob Johnson expects the employment growth for December to be around 150,000-200,000 jobs, about half of what it was in November.

“But, if you average the two months together, and you’ll end up not that far from our long-term 12-month average, which is about 241,000 jobs added,” he said.

Johnson doesn’t feel the economy is accelerating right now, but he does think it’s doing okay.

For context, Johnson doesn’t think there was any reason for a big acceleration back in November. He explained that initial claims, PMI employment numbers and ADP numbers were about the same. To him, the 321,000 number was a statistical error.

“I would expect a reversion to the mean, so to speak, on the report this Friday,” he said. “Or they go back and revise the November number down.”

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY is trading roughly 0.18 percent year-to-date, and more than 12 percent higher than a year ago.

The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish UUP is also up more than 12 percent over the past 12 months.