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* FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET
REPORT *
* February 12,
2026 *
* *
* e-mail:
fiendbear@fiendbear.com
*
* web address:
http://www.fiendbear.com
*
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Fiend Commentary
================
Charlie
Brown Payrolls and the Revision Trap
Thursday’s jobs report was “better
than feared,” and the market treated it like a small victory. But it also
highlighted the problem that keeps getting worse: we trade the first print like
it’s gospel, then act surprised when the revisions quietly rewrite the story
later.
Yes, January
payrolls came in stronger than expectations, with the unemployment rate ticking
down to 4.3%. But the same release cycle also reminded everyone what happened
in 2025: the year wasn’t “fine,” it was heavily overstated. The BLS benchmark
process now says job growth in the 12 months through March 2025 was
overestimated by 862,000 jobs. And total 2025 job growth was revised down to
181,000 from 584,000.
That is not
a minor footnote. It’s the difference between “steady expansion” and “stall
speed.”
This is
where the Charlie Brown analogy fits perfectly. The markets line up, take a
running start, and kick at the shiny headline number… only to have the football
pulled away later by the revisions. Then we do it all over again next month, as
if the last few rug-pulls never happened.
To be fair,
revisions aren’t some new scandal. Payrolls are built from surveys, and the
benchmark revision uses deeper records (like unemployment insurance data) that
arrive with a lag. That’s normal. What is not normal is how large and
consistently downward the revisions have become. When the pattern repeats,
credibility becomes an economic variable.
The other
tell today is that gold and silver are not acting frightened. Gold is still
holding the 5,000 handle (around $5,055 early Thursday), and silver is still
hovering above $80 (around $83.5). They dipped slightly as the dollar firmed
after the jobs surprise, but the bigger picture is that buyers are still
showing up quickly after every sharp downdraft.
That’s
important, because it suggests this isn’t just a speculative metals story
anymore. It’s also a confidence story.
And the
dollar remains the key swing factor. Even if the greenback gets a short-term
bounce on “less immediate rate cuts,” the broader trend is still fragile. When
the market starts thinking “the Fed may be forced to ease later anyway,” the
dollar tends to sag, and hard assets tend to stay supported. That dynamic is
exactly why metals can remain firm even when the day-to-day tape looks messy.
What to
watch next:
Bottom line:
the headline jobs number may have been good enough for a one-day sigh of
relief. But the revisions are the real plot. And it’s getting harder for
investors to pretend Lucy won’t pull the football away again.
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