Two Green Prints Don’t Make a Rebound: NER Pulse Hits +16,250 by Nov 29—After Four Weeks in the Red

PRESS RELEASE SUMMARY

This analysis is based on the official press release dated 2025-11-29. The body, however, is dated December 16, 2025 and covers the four weeks ending November 29, 2025—an awkward dating mismatch that muddies timing and context right out of the gate.

Here’s what the data reveals:

• The “second half of November” shows improvement—weekly four-week averages progress from -9,250 (11/15) to +2,750 (11/22) to +16,250 (11/29)—but that second half starts from contraction, not growth.

• The release cites “four weeks of job losses” (10/25 to 11/15). That’s accurate, and the losses were material: four-week averages of -4,750, -7,250, -12,000, and -9,250, averaging -8,313 per week.

• The Weekly NER Pulse is preliminary, seasonally adjusted, and uses a four-week moving average with a two-week lag. It’s not real-time; smoothing and lag can cloud turning points.

• The “potential rebound” framing is forward-leaning given only two positive reads following four straight negatives—and against a softer monthly baseline of +42,000 (October 2025), well below late-2024 momentum.

Numbers Behind the Narrative

The 12-week history tells a simple story: a healthy October, a late-October stumble into mid-November, and two improving prints at month-end. The improvement is real—but young—and built on a metric explicitly designed to smooth volatility.

The Sequence in Full

Two points stand out:

• The “second half of November” is not uniformly strong. It begins at -9,250 (11/15) before climbing to +2,750 and +16,250. That’s a constructive turn—just not the clean rebound the headline implies.

• Because the Pulse is a four-week average, the latest positive read at +16,250 necessarily blends the prior negatives. In other words, strength at the end of November had to be substantial to overcome the earlier drag, but the smoothing also means we can’t see intra-week volatility that may matter for risk.

The Dating Problem: Publication vs Period

The header says “Press Release Date: 2025-11-29,” but the body is dated December 16, 2025 and refers to “the four weeks ending November 29, 2025.” Why it matters:

• Markets trade timing. A December 16 narrative about “continued strengthening” could be read as contemporaneous commentary when it’s discussing a period ending two and a half weeks earlier—already baked into other indicators.

• The mismatch blurs whether the “rebound” language is meant as a November wrap-up, a December-nowcast, or a marketing push for a new weekly gauge.

If you’re setting macro risk, you need to know what’s “now” versus what’s a backward-looking smooth.

Smoothing on Training Wheels

Calling the Weekly NER Pulse “real-time insight” is a stretch. It’s a four-week moving average with a two-week lag—appropriate for signal extraction, but not designed for immediacy.

• Smoothing delays recognition of turns. The first positive average (+2,750 on 11/22) arrived only after four straight negative averages had already rolled through.

• The lag can mask intra-month inflections. A sharp weekly swing could be diluted by the average and reported long after the inflection occurred.

• The preliminary caveat (“estimates could change”) is duly noted—but overshadowed by the confident “potential rebound” framing.

For investors, that means treat the “reacceleration” talk as conditional, not confirmed.

Rebound Against a Lower Bar

Context matters. The latest monthly benchmark—October 2025—printed +42,000 jobs, the lightest monthly gain in the series shown and a notable downshift from late 2024.

Framing two positive weekly averages after four negatives as a “rebound” isn’t wrong—but it’s not yet evidence of a return to the +176,000 to +221,000 cadence seen in late 2024. The narrative has drifted from reporting monthly totals with minimal spin to promoting weekly “momentum” via a smoothed, lagged series. That’s a rhetorical upgrade, not necessarily an economic one.

What This Means for Markets

The numbers say “stabilization in progress,” not “growth renaissance.” Positioning should reflect that nuance.

• Rates

• Equities

• Credit

• FX and Commodities

• What to watch next

The Investor Takeaway

The Weekly NER Pulse climbs to +16,250 by November 29 after four straight negative averages—evidence of stabilization, not yet a durable rebound. The headline message leans optimistic while the methodology (a four-week average with a two-week lag) counsels humility. Add measured duration, stay up in quality across credit and equities, and resist extrapolating two green prints into a full-cycle upswing. In this tape, the edge goes to investors who trade the data’s construction—smoothing, lag, and all—rather than the headline adjectives.