>BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1996 > >RELEASED TODAY: The U.S. Import Price Index rose 0.8 percent in September. >The increase, attributable to both rising petroleum and nonpetroleum import >prices, followed a modest 0.1 percent gain in September. In contrast, the >U.S. Export Price Index, down 0.8 percent in September, fell for the fourth >consecutive month .... > Labor Secretary Reich and OPM Director King unveil DOL's World Wide Web site, providing federal employees nationwide with on-line job search and career transition assistance. The set is located at http://safetynet.doleta.gov ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-7; Washington Post, pages A17,E2). "Who is predicting Fed's next move? Just about everyone," says the Wall Street Journal (page A1). "The search for the magic number that helps it set policy goes on and on and on ....No nugget of news is too trivial for the frenzied handicapping of Fed moves. Comments by second-string officials rattle traders ....So do routine economic statistics ....Lately, the Fed has been testing the inflation risks stemming from ever-lower rates of unemployment by holding policy steady despite strong economic growth. This drives Wall Street crazy, humbling its highly paid economists and repeatedly forcing them to scrap forecasts ....The frenzy to handicap the Fed is partly due to a proliferation of financial news-wires, interest-rate futures markets and hedge funds. The dirty secret is that `they all have a vested interest in volatility,' says H. Erich Heineman, a New York economist. It doesn't matter whether rumors are false or data misleading -- if they move the market, that's enough, he says, because a lot of people still get paid ...." DUE OUT TOMORROW: Mass Layoffs in the Second Quarter of 1996
