Now everything's a little upside down,

as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped.

What's good is bad, what's bad is good.

You'll find out when you reach the top

you're on the bottom.

- Bob Dylan, 

The wheels of new hiring in the U.S. lurched to a near halt in March. Job creation was predicted to be at 190,000 for the month but ended up at a paltry 88,000. Lurking within that number is something more startling - the unemployment rate went down to 7.6%. The bulk of that decline came because so many people have stopped hunting for a job, and there is a Baby Boom retirement factor entering the dynamic.

This signals to the precious markets that QE3 should be far from over. Yesterday we said that, should the economy - the people economy and not the corporate profits economy - not pick up by the third quarter, look for even more effervescence to be pumped into the system. 

Yesterday's news from Japan concerning their new and bigger-than-anticipated easing program fed into the same stream of analysis. 

But, and this is a very big but, without Europe's participation in stimulating, the rest of the world is going nowhere fast economically. We are waiting for one of the major players aside from Germany to break ranks and begin to stimulate their national economy regardless of how the Bundesbank or the E.C.B. reacts. The likely suspects are France, Italy and possibly Belgium (the last not a "major" player, but important). 

Europe's unemployment rate shot back to 12%, an unacceptable number for a highly-developed region. Worse, in some countries youth unemployment hovers at more than double that, more than 25%. The bigger pitfall for Europe is that it will end up with a Lost Generation of workers - people between 18 and 29 who have never really worked and if they do find jobs eventually will have no sills as older young adults. 

China's export data will be issued Wednesday, and while the little Asian giant will no doubt see a surplus, it seems certain exports will have declined. Europe is China's biggest customer. Europe is soft as can be. The U.S. market has shifted away from many Chinese manufactured goods to North American-made goods because the booming expansion of American and Canadian energy production has pushed industrial fuels down. Natural gas is less expensive than water in many regions of the country.

We will also be keeping our eye on the release of the full minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting in March. It must be said that, given the labor news issued today, the details of that meeting are yesterday's news. Wrap your fish with it. But speculators will scratch and pick until they find something negative.

We are also beginning to sniff the air for the equities correction. Some are saying April will be the cruelest month in many for the stock market. Depending on corporate earnings for the first quarter, which will probably be flat to negative, you can look for a fairly major correction.

That, as we love to say, is good for gold.