(Reuters) - President Donald Trump set tongues wagging across Wall Street and among economists on Friday when he tweeted what some viewed as a tip about the big monthly U.S. payrolls report due out later in the morning. 
 
 “Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning,” Trump said by tweet at 7:21 a.m. EDT (1121 GMT), just over an hour before the highly anticipated news was released. 
 
 The post was quickly retweeted thousands of times, especially by market participants, economists and financial journalists for whom the monthly data is a top-tier news event. 
 
 “Since we know the president gets the report way in advance, it’s probably safe to assume it’s a beat,” Yahoo Finance Managing Editor Sam Ro tweeted. 
 
 Indeed, the number was a bit stronger than expected, with 223,000 U.S. jobs created in May, 35,000 above the Reuters estimate of 188,000. The unemployment rate dropped to an 18-year low of 3.8 percent. 
 
 It does not appear, however, that market participants jumped to trade on Trump’s tweet before the official release. 
 
 S&P; 500 e-mini futures ESv1 were up about 12 points, or 0.45 percent, before his tweet, then nudged about 1 point higher in the moments afterward. There was no discernable pick-up in trading volume to accompany the move to suggest market players saw it as a tradable tip. 
 
 Similarly, futures on the 10-year Treasury note TYv1 were lower and added fractionally to the losses, but as with the equity futures, no volume acceleration accompanied the move. 
 
 Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, said in television interviews later on Friday that he had briefed Trump on Thursday about the numbers. By law, the NEC head is one of a handful of administration officials allowed an advance view of the report before its public release from a high-security lockup at the Labor Department, typically on the first Friday of the month at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). 
 
 “It is my call on whether to send them over to the president, to give him a call or have a meeting with him. That’s just what I did last evening,” Kudlow said on CNBC. 
 
 “He has a right to know. He is the commander in chief. That’s all. He chose to tweet. His tweet basically said, like everybody else, we await the jobs numbers. You can read into that ten different things, if you want to read into it.” 
 
 Trump has frequently tweeted about robust jobs numbers after they’ve been released, but this was the first time he did so ahead of its release. 
 
 A 33-year-old rule from the White House Office of Management and Budget governing the release of embargoed economic data forbids executive branch employees from public discussion of the data within an hour of its release. 
 
 Last year, members of the Trump administration drew criticism for commenting on the numbers too quickly after their release. 
 
 Members of past administrations chided the president for breaking protocol and potentially offering an advance view of one of the world’s most market-moving pieces of economic data. 
 
 “If during the Clinton or Obama Administrations there had been a statement from @POTUS or any senior official in the morning before the Employment Report it would have been a major scandal - with all sorts of investigations following on,” tweeted Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury Secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the U.S. Coast Guard Change-of-Command ceremony at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, U.S., June 1, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis 
 
 Trump’s post was also seen as heightening an already intense focus on Trump’s Twitter handle by market participants. 
 
 “Traders will now be watching the president’s Twitter account much more closely ahead of the jobs release to see if he says anything,” said Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group in Salt Lake City. 
 
 “If he does (like today), then the forthcoming report is likely bullish and money will move accordingly. If he’s silent, maybe it’s not so great. Traders, right or wrong, may play that game for a while and that’s a potentially interesting twist.” ||||| Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump 
 
 President Donald Trump’s tweet in advance of the crucial jobs report may have violated federal guidelines barring officials from commenting on data before its release. 
 
 Trump tweeted, at 7:21 a.m. Eastern, “Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.” The numbers provided reason to look forward — an 18-year low on unemployment, and 223,000 jobs created. 
 
 See: U.S. adds 223,000 new jobs as unemployment falls to 18-year low in May 
 
 The bond market did have a reaction to Trump’s tweet, as the yield on the 10-year TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.69% increased after the tweet, a move consistent with increased expectations of economic growth. The yield picked up even more after the jobs report actually came out. 
 
 The rule Trump may have violated is set out by the Office of Management and Budget, in the heretofore dry, Statistical Policy Directive No. 3. 
 
 The chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers — Kevin Hassett, currently — and the president are allowed to get briefed on the jobs report. However, “agencies must ensure that adequate steps (e.g., sequestering those granted access) are taken to prevent prerelease disclosure or use. So long as there is no risk of prerelease disclosure or use, prerelease access is permitted.” 
 
 Here’s what they are required to do: “Except for members of the staff of the agency issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, employees of the Executive Branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time.” 
 
 Two areas of wiggle room seem to emerge — one, whether Trump is covered as an “employee of the executive branch,” and two, whether the tweet without numbers can be construed as a “comment.” 
 
 White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told CNBC the comment was appropriate since “he didn’t put the numbers out.” 
 
 National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said he was briefed by Hassett and called the president Thursday night. “I wanted him to know the numbers, by law and custom, that is correct,” Kudlow said on CNBC. 
 
 “He chose to tweet,” Kudlow added. “I don’t think he gave anything away, I think this is all according to routine.” 
 
 The OMB and the Labor Department’s inspector-general didn’t return messages. The Labor Department referred inquiries to the White House. 
 
 Jason Furman, who previously was chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, tweeted that the president should never see them again. Austan Goolsbee, who also held that role for Obama, pointed out how sensitive it is. 
 
 It’s classified information. The CEA gets the number the day before and even internally can only discuss the info on an encrypted line before release. https://t.co/ykiw5CM2nS — Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) June 1, 2018 
 
 Tony Fratto, who was a spokesman for the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush, said he’s not sure Trump broke the law. 
 
 I'm not aware of any statute that would prevent a POTUS from announcing the jobs #s himself if he wanted to. But it's obviously pretty bad practice to hint at the number. Market participants rely on consistent, predictable release of our data. — Tony Fratto (@TonyFratto) June 1, 2018 
 
 Justin Wolfers, a professor at the University of Michigan, said Trump’s tweet now sets up a dilemma for future reports. 
 
 And you can't put the genie back in the bottle: Next jobs day, if at 7:21am Trump tweets about Roseanne or some other dumb thing that's not the jobs day, markets will infer he doesn't want to talk about the jobs report. Watch: Stocks will fall as a result. — Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018 
 
 As MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting pointed out in a column last year criticizing the president’s tweet on the jobs report at 8:45 a.m., Trump is not the first president to have crossed lines. President Dwight Eisenhower leaked the jobs report ahead of time, right before Election Day in 1954, 1956 and 1958. 
 
 Opinion: Trump’s tweet erodes trust in objectivity of government data ||||| WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump tweeted about the May jobs report before its release Friday, in an unusual break from decades of protocol that sent bond yields and the value of the dollar higher. 
 
 About an hour before the Labor Department released a report Friday morning showing the unemployment rate had fallen to its lowest level since April 2000, Mr. Trump said on Twitter he was “looking forward” to seeing the figures. 
 
 The president had been briefed on the numbers Thursday evening, but they hadn’t yet been made public. Longstanding rules on sensitive economic data call for executive branch officials to withhold comment for at least an hour after figures are released. 
 
 While Mr. Trump didn’t give any details on the data in his tweet, investors appeared to take his early comment as a signal that the data would be strong, figuring it was unlikely the president would tell Americans he was looking forward to a weak report. 
 
 The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose after Mr. Trump’s 7:21 a.m. EDT tweet, then jumped higher after the 8:30 a.m. EDT report. 
 
 “The entire market stopped and focused on it immediately,” said Michael Lorizio, a bond trader at Manulife Asset Management. “For sure, one could take that tweet and position accordingly.” 
 
 The WSJ Dollar Index climbed after Mr. Trump’s tweet and spiked immediately after the report came out. Gold prices fell after the tweet and dipped further just after the official release. Stock futures didn’t move significantly on his tweet. 
 
 “The implication was certainly there that he was expecting a great number, and it affected the market,” said Peter Hug, global trading director at Kitco Metals. “I can’t believe he did that.” 
 
 The White House receives the jobs report and other major economic indicators before their public release, but officials “are responsible for assuring that there is no release prior to the official release time,” according to a longstanding White House Office of Management and Budget directive. 
 
 The president was briefed on the numbers Thursday by Lawrence Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council and the president’s chief economic adviser. 
 
 Mr. Kudlow on Friday dismissed a furor in markets over the president’s tweet. “All these traders need to see a shrink,” he said in an interview. “People are really overthinking this.” 
 
 Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said Mr. Trump hadn’t done anything wrong because he didn’t disclose the report itself. 
 
 “If he had tweeted the numbers, that would have been a process foul,” he said. 
 
 Followers Bond yields and the dollar rose Friday after President Trump tweeted about the jobs report ahead of its 8:30 a.m. EDT release. WSJ Dollar Index After tweet 87.5 Release 87.4 87.3 
 
 87.2 ||||| “Most sophisticated firms these days are following Twitter, and in the age of Trump, a lot of firms have trading models that are following him,” said Larry Tabb, founder of the Tabb Group, a financial markets research and advisory firm. 
 
 Still, some expressed concern that the president could turn one of the most important signals about the health of the economy into a trading game that could destabilize financial markets by prompting a rapid sell-off in advance of future jobs reports if Mr. Trump did not tout the upcoming release. 
 
 Before he became president, and began to celebrate strong jobs reports, Mr. Trump actively worked to undermine confidence in economic data. Throughout his run for the White House and even in the months before he took office, he often dismissed the reports as “fiction.” 
 
 Washington has long tried to prevent market-moving data like the employment numbers from being prematurely released. In 1985, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a regulation governing the release of embargoed federal data like the jobs report, including a requirement that employees of the executive branch not comment publicly on the data until an hour after its release. 
 
 “All employees of the executive branch who receive prerelease distribution of information and data estimates as authorized above are responsible for assuring that there is no release prior to the official release time,” the regulation states. “Except for members of the staff of the agency issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, employees of the executive branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time.” 
 
 It is unclear whether the regulation applies to Mr. Trump, some legal experts said. “I would be very cautious about assuming this applies to the president, who is generally not considered an employee” of the executive branch, said Adam Scales, a law professor at Rutgers University who teaches administrative law. 
 
 The Republican National Committee responded to the criticism of Mr. Trump on Friday afternoon by flagging an evening speech by President Barack Obama on Feb. 5, 2009, the night before the first jobs report release of Mr. Obama’s presidency. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
– President Trump’s 7:21am tweet hinting at favorable figures in Friday’s jobs report broke presidential protocol and may have run afoul of a federal rule on the subject, reports MarketWatch. "Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning," wrote Trump. The Office of Management and Budget rule bars federal officials from commenting on sensitive economic data until one hour after its release, mainly because the comments can have a disruptive effect on the market. And indeed, after the tweet, the yield on the 10-year treasury note increased, then rose even more after the strong jobs report came out, notes the Wall Street Journal. Trump's tweet was quickly retweeted thousands of times, particularly in financial circles, reports Reuters. The report is issued at 8:30am on the first Friday of the month, and the president is typically briefed the night before, notes the New York Times. Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, says he discussed the report with the president on Thursday and defended Trump’s tweet as being neutral. “His tweet basically said, like everybody else, we await the jobs numbers,” Kudlow told CNBC, per Reuters. “You can read into that 10 different things, if you want to read into it.” Lawrence Summers, who was Treasury chief under President Clinton, disagreed. If this had happened in either the Clinton or Obama White House, "it would have been a major scandal—with all sorts of investigations following on,” he tweeted.