by Calculated Risk on 10/04/2018 07:06:00 PM

My September Employment Preview

Goldman: September Payrolls Preview

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM, Employment Report for September. The consensus is for an increase of 180,000 non-farm payroll jobs in September, down from the 201,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in August. The consensus is for the unemployment rate to decline to 3.8%.

• At 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for August from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a deficit of $53.7 billion, from $50.1 billion deficit in July.

• At 3:00 PM, Consumer Credit from the Federal Reserve. The consensus is for consumer credit to increase $15.0 billion in August.

I've returned from my hiking trip in Peru. As part of the trip, my friends and I hiked the Old Inka Trail to Machu Picchu (with an amazing group of people from around the world).

It was an incredible journey, and the engineering effort to build the trail was stunning (over 500 years ago).

Here are a few pictures from my Trip.  The first picture is from an overlook of Machu Picchu.

The views in every direction were amazing.   Machu Picchu is at an elevation of 7,792', and is surrounded by lush vegetation and soaring peaks.  We climbed the peak in the back shrouded in clouds (Waynapicchu, elevation 8,752')

For those who want to hike the trail, I recommend Alpaca Expeditions (our lead guide, Yoel, was very knowledgeable and funny)!

For those who aren't excited by hiking, you can take the train to Agua Caliente, and the bus up the hill to Machu Picchu (we took the bus down and train back). There are many other things to see in Peru (like the colonial city of Cusco, Rainbow mountain and much more)

The second photo is at the top of Dead Woman's Pass. This is the high point of the trail at 4,215 meters above sea level (about 13,800').

There are two high passes on the trail (both on Day 2), and on night 2 we slept at close to 13,000'.

This pass is named after a mountain formation that looks like a woman lying on her back, not because of some tragedy.

The third photo is of some ruins we passed along the way.

There are frequent Inka ruins along the trail; each amazing.

We had a great trip, and I'm looking forward to returning to Peru and South America.

Now back to blogging,  Best to all.