As certainty of the Fed's intent to reduce asset purchases at the September meeting has waxed and waned (and waxed again), one thing has remained even more certain: If September 6th's jobs numbers come in exceedingly strong or weak, the taper timeline suddenly becomes more or less certain, relatively.  In other words, polls currently show a better-than-average likelihood that the September 18th Fed meeting will bring a taper announcement.  Strong employment data this week makes the chances much higher while a surprisingly weak report could do enough damage to make that a minority viewpoint.

So potent is the Employment Situation Report that it could still have these effects even if it goes against the grain of the week's other data.  This would be more of a risk were it not for the holiday-shortened schedule moving ADP Employment to Thursday morning.  Because of that, we get ADP, Jobless Claims and ISM Non-Manufacturing all in less than 2 hours on the day before NFP.  That could make for a high-volatility "lead-off" in the anticipated direction of the post-NFP trade.

But even if the data is clearly stronger or weaker, the extent to which Fed tapering is "priced in" to trading levels is more of mystery.  While we did see an increasing amount of disconnection between data and tapering prospects, there are several complicating factors.  The two most salient factors in the past week were geopolitical risk surrounding Syria and the low-liquidity "last week of summer" trading environment.  From a technical standpoint, it's not safe to assume that tapering has been fully priced in until it either happens, or until we've seen bond markets make a move more like the two most similar previous sell-off's in the 90's.