Buckle up, fam. Gold, silver and BTC prices are going to free fall… Oh wait, they already did. This is what happens when the assets can be traded almost 24 hours a day (23 hours/day for gold and silver). We all know the stock market is going to tumble when it opens. So what happened?

About 8 hours ago (at the time of writing), the U.S. job report came out. Apparently, this is a big deal as it might literally change the market's direction. BTC, gold and silver prices immediately plummeted when the news came out.

[Gold price dropped by 1.4% in less than an hour]

[Silver price dropped by 3.15% in less than an hour]

[BTC price dropped by 2.2%, rallied up again before falling to a lower low]

You might think a fall of a few basis points is nothing, but the non-farm payrolls might change the climate of the economy. Think of these few basis points as an early dump for what's yet to come. Let's have a look at the U.S. employment report.

[Chart source: https://www.fxpro.com]

The unemployment rate is dropping month-over-month. It performs better than the consensus as most people think the U.S. is heading for a recession. As the GDP fell, logically speaking, the customers' spending should be decreased, which caused lower revenue for companies and eventually led to job reductions as companies needed to cut spending. That's just economics 101. So, the low unemployment rate means the U.S. economy is not in a recession, right? Perhaps.

[Chart source: https://www.fxpro.com]

The non-farm payrolls show an even more promising result as it soared by 528,000, while the prediction was only 250,000, more than double the rate of increase in jobs. According to the Household Survey, there were 158.29 million working Americans in the U.S. last month, an increase of 179,00. The chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics - Ian Shepherdson, says that the Fed might change its course to 50 or 25 basis points (hike in interest rate) in September, but because of the job report, the pivot is no longer an option; thus the policy choice will be between 50 - 75 basis point.

So is it true that the U.S. is not in a recession? No one could give a definitive answer for now. The job report, as hopeful as it sounds, we must remember that the employment rate is a lagging indicator. The definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. The U.S. is definitely in a recession by that definition, and perhaps the employment rate will start to fall in the next few months. I think the market sentiment is still undecided. On the one hand, some traders think the recession is here, so the Fed will change its stance from hawkish to dovish (bullish). On the other hand, some traders think the recession is transitory, and the Fed will continue raising interest rates until next year (bearish). Which team is correct, and who is high on copium? Only time will tell.