The U.S. created 151,000 jobs in August, short of the 180,000 economists were predicting. The latest disappointing jobs number comes after two straight months of strong gains.

That number complicates things for the Federal Reserve ahead of its September meeting, Allianz Chief Economic Adviser Mohamed El-Erian told Benzinga.

“While falling short of consensus expectations, the report confirms that a robust labor market continues to underpin a solid US economy that still falls short of escape velocity,” El-Erian said in an email.

“The report puts the Fed in a particularly tricky situation when their high level policymaking FOMC committee next meets on September 20-21.”

According to El-Erian, the U.S. economy is certainly not firing on all cylinders, but the long-term impact of historically low interest rates could be grounds for a rate hike sooner rather than later.

“It is not uniformly strong enough to make a hike a slam dunk,” he said of the August jobs number. “But it is solid enough for a credible case for a hike given the negative spillover effects of a prolonged period of ultra low interest rates.”

Investors certainly seem…

Click here to continue reading

Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!