ADP Reports January Job Gains of 22,000; Economy at Stall Speed; Government Lies Rampant as Friday's Non-Farm Payrolls Delayed

There's probably a very good reason the U.S. government pulled off a partial shut down over the weekend, resolved on Tuesday, when the House of Representatives approved the very slight, marginal changes to the appropriations bills sent to the Senate last week.

Democrats in the Senate, with a handful of Republicans, balked at the appropriations over the activities of ICE in Minnesota and elsewhere, refusing to pass funding for DHS, calling for reforms of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agency inside DHS. Similar to the grandstanding over health care subsidies back in October, the outrage over ICE was another carefully-crafted canard.

The Obamacare subsidies, which were suspended by the Big, Beautiful Bill back in July, got an extension in the House, but is currently stalled in the Senate, the result, for now, no subsidies. Remember what happed to the October Non-Farm Payroll data during the last shutdown? Gone missing. Vanished. Poof.

On Monday, the BLS announced that because of the government shutdown - less than four days, Saturday through late Tuesday - the NFP January report scheduled for this Friday, along with a couple other releases including JOLTS, was going to be delayed. No new release date has been given thus far. So, there's the reason for the short shutdown. January's jobs numbers - mind you, the month following the holidays usually a time at which retail lays off thousands - must be just plain horrific and the politicians, who would never lie to the American people, figured out a convenient way to hide them for a while.

If all of this sounds like too much conspiracy theory, well, draw your own conclusions, but Wednesday morning, ADP issued the January national employment report for private businesses, showing a gain of 22,000 jobs for the month. That is basically stall speed and comes on the heels of the government reporting GDP for the third quarter of 2025 of 4.3% (released December 23) and the fourth quarter estimate (delayed due to the October shutdown and yet to be released) of 4.2%.

If the U.S. economy is growing at an accelerated pace, then labor might want to be sharing in the general prosperity, but it's not. The White House and congress cannot square the circle of lies they've been passing along to the American public. The economy isn't growing, USA is not the "hottest" country on the planet, according to the Boaster-in-Chief, jobs are hard to find and there's a recession and probably a stock market crash dead ahead.

The government can't reveal the lies yet. They need a couple more weeks or maybe just days before the eventual rug-pull. Maybe big money is already exiting, as the major averages have been down slightly the past three weeks and Tuesday wasn't very pretty.

Stocks were down significantly Tuesday, but a late-day rally (for no apparent reason) clawed back roughly half of the losses on the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P.

Corporate profits aren't helping the narrative much. They've been spotty so far.

After the close on Tuesday, the following companies reported fourth quarter results:

1. Amgen (AMGN) - met expectations, stock flat pre-market
2. Chubb (CB) - solid results, stock up 2%
3. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) - earnings beat, strong guidance, stock down 10% pre-open
4. Chipolte Mexican Grill (CMG) - declining traffic, same store sales, shares down 2.5%
5. SuperMicro (SMCI) - strong earnings beat, stock up 8.5%

On Wednesday, before the open:

• Novo Nordisk (NVO) - bad forecast, stock down 4%
• Lilly (LLY) - blows away estimates, stock up 7%
• Uber (UBER) - revenue growth, poor forecast, stock down 1%
• Abbvie (ABBV) - beat, upbeat guidance, stock down 4%
• Boston Scientific (BSX) - cautious forecast, stock down 8%
• CME Group (CME) - slight top and bottom line beat, stock flat.

Gold and silver have rallied back strong over the past two days. Gold: $5,041.80; silver: $91.33. Futures are split with the NASDAQ lower.

Be prepared.

At the Close, Tuesday, February 3, 2026:
Dow: 49,240.99, -166.67 (-0.34%)
NASDAQ: 23,255.19, -336.92 (-1.43%)
S&P 500: 6,917.81, -58.63 (-0.84%)
NYSE Composite: 22,881.21, -4.44 (-0.02%)