Unemployment Putting the Brakes on our Economic Recovery

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-Sept-nonfarm-payrolls-rb-589941939.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

Job losses were worse than expected for September.  So what's new?  The analysts get it right or wrong every month.  This time they were just conservative based on hopes that the recovery we'd seen in the stock market would equate to a recovery in the economy.  Should they have?  I think they're a few months ahead.  The stock market is a leading indicator, not a laggard.  So if it turns up, it usually means that the economy will be doing better in 6 to 12 months, not last month.

The stock market has a been a good indicator over history, but it can be wrong too.  Irrational investors can drive prices up to places they shouldn't be and then we see crashes.  Our economic professors and finance professors say that the stock market is efficient.  That is what research says and theories.  Personally I believe that it is efficient on an average basis.  I believe there are times when psychological factors play a bigger role in stock prices than facts.  Rumors about the stability of Lehman Brothers are what led its shares to fall to near zero in one day, so how does a company that size go from the second largest investment bank to worthless in one day if we have an efficient market?  Maybe the market was just predicting its failure.