E-piphany

James Shugg of Westpac Banking Co was the closest, at -80k estimate, to the actual Payrolls number of -85k (among surveyed economists at Bloomberg). It would be neat if firms had an “Employment pool” like traders and salespeople at many investment firms do: each firm puts up $1k and the winning economist gets the pool. Although, come to think of it, that wouldn’t work…the strategy to maximize your expected winnings is not necessarily the same strategy to minimize your forecast variance. It would be fun though.