Imagine you're Barack Obama, about to give the most important political speech of your presidency, and someone on your staff hands you one of the best pieces of economic news you've seen yet.
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A display on stage show U.S. President Barack Obama during preparations for the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Trouble is, the information often is a major influence on the financial markets and is embargoed until the next morning.
Do you keep it to yourself — or do you at least drop enough hints that astute listeners can draw some logical and important conclusions?
That will be the dilemma the president faces today as he prepares to deliver his speech as the climactic event for this week'sDemocratic National Convention.
At some point this afternoon, the White House will know the gist of what's in the Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report that reveals the national unemployment rate (learn more), but which the public will not see until 8:30 am ET Friday.
Wall Street was abuzz Thursday with speculation of whether Obama's remarks might deliver a hint of what's to come, particularly since the day's news indicated that the report could be a good deal better than the meager 125,000 job growth number that economists had expected.
"Normally I'm dismissive of those kinds of speculations about advance information in the employment report, but this is actually one of those instances where everything you said is true," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities in New York.
"Let's suppose we had a bigger-than-expected increase in payrolls. Would he allude to that?" he continued. "That's as much about getting into the psychology of the man as it is the facts at hand."
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