JOBS/LABOR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TWITTER: “President Donald Trump, breaking with longstanding practice surrounding sensitive economic data, tweeted early Friday [6-1-18] that he was ‘looking forward’ to the release of the Labor Department’s employment figures, which subsequently showed a sharp gain in payrolls and another decline in the jobless rate. Mr. Trump was briefed on the data on Thursday [5-31-18] night, and his tweet at 7:21 a.m. Friday came just over an hour before the May jobs report was released to the public, at 8:30 a.m. EDT. The report showed the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.8% in May, matching the level seen in April 2000, and nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 223,000, stronger than expected. Ahead of Friday’s report, economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected employers would add 190,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate would hold steady at 3.9%. While Mr. Trump didn’t give any early details on the data, investors appeared to take his unusual comment as a signal that the data would be strong, figuring it was unlikely the president would tell Americans he was looking forward to a weak report. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose after Mr. Trump’s tweet, then jumped higher after the 8:30 a.m. report. Treasury yields typically rise in the face of strong economic data. The WSJ Dollar Index climbed after Mr. Trump’s tweet and spiked after the report came out.”
-Ben Leubsdorf and Peter Nicholas, “Trump Tweeted About Jobs Report Before Release,” The Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2018 12:25 pm