by Calculated Risk on 10/04/2015 08:17:00 PM

Reading articles this weekend on the payroll report, I'm reminded of a sentence I wrote back in March: Why the Prime Labor Force Participation Rate has Declined

"Complaining about the decline in the overall labor force participation rate is the last refuge of scoundrels."

Still true.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of October 4, 2015

Monday:
• Early: Reis Q3 2015 Mall Survey of rents and vacancy rates.

• At 10:00 AM, the Fed will release the monthly Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI).

• Also at 10:00 AM ET, the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for September. The consensus is for index to decrease to 57.7 from 59.0 in August.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are down 2 and DOW futures are down 14 (fair value).

Oil prices were down slightly over the last week with WTI futures at $45.29 per barrel and Brent at $47.85 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $90, and Brent was at $91 - so prices are down about 50% year-over-year (It was a year ago that prices started falling sharply).

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.29 per gallon (down about $1.00 per gallon from a year ago).