New Delhi, July 2 -- WASHINGTON - The morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June employment report, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 300 points to a record. The disconnect was not an accident.

The economy added 57,000 nonfarm payrolls last month, the BLS reported Thursday - roughly half of what forecasters had anticipated, and well below the consensus expectation of around 110,000. Markets moved higher not despite the number but because of it. A labor market this soft does not tighten interest rates; it delays them, and on a pre-holiday Thursday with a long weekend ahead, that calculation drove blue chips to fresh highs even as technology stocks fell on separate concerns about chipmaker valuations.

The June ...