VolumesThis morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly payroll data, which has caused stocks and bond yields to fall. The disappointment was not limited to the headline number (192,000 added jobs versus 200,000 expected), but that number itself was a disappointment for a variety of reasons. Let’s take a look at how this number may challenge a fundamental assumption that has carried stocks for 2014.

The Ever-Present Weather

Macro numbers in 2014 have been awful. Few surprise beats and many surprising disappointments, particularly when it comes to PMI and manufacturing figures from China and the U.S. These both signal a slowdown in domestic demand, which has caused investors to worry that the hyper growth of equity values in 2013 is unlikely to repeat itself.

Then the bulls consoled themselves with the thought that the unusually cold winter was causing people to spend less. This caused stocks to recover in March, but YTD growth remained anemic. Stocks remain positive as of the time of this writing, but just barely; SPY is up about 1.6%, while Russell 2000 and Nasdaq 100 (NDX) are down YTD.

Because of the weather, the data for March became unusually important. A beat in added jobs would imply the recovery is still intact, and the disappointments in January and February were weather related. While the BLS figures are always a major market-moving event, this was even heightened this month because many short-term investors saw March’s results as a signal of the weather hypothesis. If it beat, we could ignore temporary setbacks from the cold.

That did not happen, which is hitting stocks everywhere.

Growth Stocks and Entry Points

While everyone is getting battered, NDX is suffering the most, and is currently down 2%. This is another of many bad days for several momentum stocks in the tech and online media sectors, with Tesla (TSLA), Pandora (P), Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), and even Google (GOOG, GOOGL) facing a loss of confidence.

While all investors should be aware of changes in aggregate demand signaled by macro numbers, they also need to have a fundamental understanding of the companies they invest in. Does this unemployment disappointment signal a decline in demand for these companies’ products? Or are we seeing a temporary panic that is making the stocks unusually cheap, providing an entry point for speculative investors?

This question refers to an important aspect of equity investing—the issue of entry points. When you are an investor and you believe a company is going to have fundamental growth in revenue and earnings, you want to buy stock in the company. But so does everyone else, which causes the price of that stock to rise. If you are a good investor, you are paying a discount to the future value of the company—Discounted Cash Flows are made to determine what that discount is at current price.

Bad investors, on the other hand, do not determine if they are buying the future at a discount—they just buy because the company is facing explosive growth. This is why some people lost money investing in Pandora when it was at 39 and others made money buying the company when it was at 15. Returns are compounded when good investors determine entry and exit points, stick to them, tweak them according to market changes, and buy and sell accordingly.

This is all relevant now because many of these companies are much cheaper than they were a couple months ago—but some are still more expensive than they were a few months before that. Your job as an investor is to determine if these stocks are now cheap enough to buy, or if they aren’t, when they will be. That is your target price, and that is when you should buy.

This is how aggressive investors turn macroeconomic uncertainty into an opportunity, but it is only possible with patience, diligence, research, and discipline.