It pays to review previous notes to see how markets reacted, so here is a quick link to my April 1 blog. There is a link to the four-paragraph description of the Jobs Report at Yahoo Finance. There is also a closing paragraph where I asked readers to try to explain (or understand) why early Dow futures were +50 on the basis of such a low number.

It also pays to go back and review the trading that immediately preceded and followed the release of such extreme data as the April 1 release of jobs 110,000 jobs created in March. The following chart shows that traders blew it off, i.e., took that bad news in stride.

With respect to the Jobs Report that will be out at 8:30am today, I feel it is important to see what kind of jobs were created, and this data is contained in the report, not the headline number.

It's also important to read the report to see if wage costs are growing at a rate that will push inflation higher. Workers need higher wages if they are forced to pay higher food costs, $3.00 gas prices at the fuel pump, higher clothing costs, and so forth. So PPI/CPI costs that you read about that are growing at an alarming rate do factor into the economy in other ways, perhaps the most important of which is the impact on wage costs. Today's report will show what's happening on that front.

The Wall Street Journal reporter I saw on CNBC this morning gave an incredibly succinct review of what to expect. On the jobs data, he said if the net total number exceeded 200,000, traders would worry about inflation, and if was less than 150,000 they would worry about an economy growing too slow.

Today's consensus new jobs total is 175,000. It's a talking point. Nothing more.

There is always something to worry about (i.e., think about) in the capital markets, isn't there?