Front Running Tips From the President

It pays to pay close attention to what the President says, it can mean money in your pocket. John Crudele explains:

President Obama tipped the world off to the Friday [jobs] number well ahead of time.

Speaking Thursday night at a campaign rally in Tysons Corner, Va., Obama pleaded his case that we've turned the corner economically -- despite a record number of people on food stamps and no slowdown in home foreclosures -- with these words: "I'm convinced that actions we've taken in the first six months have helped stop our economic freefall. . . . We're losing jobs at half the rate we were at the beginning of the year."

But the president appears to have helped people who weren't in that crowd break the laws against insider trading.

The White House and the Treasury Department get the jobs report one hour after the financial markets close on Thursday. But the rules are that these numbers are confidential, and they are supposed to stay secret for a reason.

Since investors are trying to make a profit by trading securities at any time somewhere in the world, having knowledge of this very important economic statistic could be used for vast personal profit.

The 247,000 jobs that were later reported to have disappeared in July were, indeed, less than half the number being lost earlier this year -- at least in the official Labor Department tally. But job losses during June were 467,000, which was more than half the amount lost earlier in the year.

So the president had to be referring to the new (and supposedly secret)July report and not the one for June.

There's money to be made by paying close attention to comments from the president and other top officials. Also, pay close attention to any last minute forecast changes from Nouriel Roubini and, naturally, Goldman Sachs.