I think Wall Street is wrong.

The consensus is that the Labor Department will saythat anywhere from 215,000 to 300,000 jobs were created in July when its report is released before Friday's opening bell.

Experts had predicted good growth in June but the actual number was a not-so-stellar gain of 112,000 jobs — less than half of what had been expected.

The guessers apparently think some of the jobs that didn't show up in June will suddenly appear tomorrow.

With only two more monthly reports due before the election, tomorrow's number is obviously politically important.

But this report is just as vital for Wall Street because other reports are showing a slowdown in economic growth, an inconvenient development for a stock market that is already expensive. Here's my theory — and I emphasize the word "theory" — on where I think Wall Street will be wrong on the jobs figures.

Last year the government reported that the economy lost 44,000 jobs in July.

Included in that figure was a guess by the Labor Department that so many companies quietly went out of business that they took 83,000 jobs with them. You could look it up: http://www.bls.gov/web/cesbd. htm. Without that guess, the economy would have gained — rather than lost — jobs last July.

In other words, the Labor Department's so-called Net Birth/Death Adjustment tabulates July as one of only two months in which there are more companies dying and taking jobs away than creating new jobs.

The other month is January, when Labor takes out a massive number of jobs because it assumes a large number of companies die off after Christmas.

I assume the White House doesn't understand these assumptions because the small jobs gain in January — helped by these assumptions — set off a massive amount of administration bellyaching.

But the White House was quite happy when these assumptions reversed in the spring and hundreds of thousands of guesstimated jobs were added to the monthly count.

Unless the Labor Department deviates from its previous assumptions this July, the economy will have to have created an awful lot of jobs to get over the statistical hump and meet Wall Street's forecast.

Or, the jobs will have to suddenly appear.

*

Former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso now has two very big and dangerous bets on the table in his poker game against Eliot Spitzer and The New York Stock Exchange.

Last week the former head of the NYSE sued John Reed, the new leader of the exchange, as well as the Big Board itself, for various reasons including defamation of character.

Legal sources tell me the defamation claim is particularly dangerous for Grasso because it will bring his character and entire life into question during the trial.

That would be OK except that the NYSE had two big scandals during Grasso's tenure — one into which he was almost dragged.

So Grasso's side may eventually regret complaining about being called bad names.

In another recent development, the attorney general has asked that his lawsuit against Grasso be moved back into the same New York State court where it was originally filed.

The case involves Grasso's compensation while at the NYSE.

Experts believe Grasso wants the case in federal court since a previous ruling gave him absolute immunity from suits because Grasso asserted that his role as a regulator gave him special status.

The irony is that immunity — if upheld — could be used to protect the millions Grasso was allowed to earn at the NYSE by claiming he was more than just a regulator.

One source that is very familiar with the immunity issue thinks the irony won't be lost on the federal court, which will bump the case back to the state.

*

Thomson First Call tells me that second quarter earnings are running 4.4 percent above expectations.

It says 297 of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index have beaten analysts' expectations, 60 have missed and 72 are right on target.

* Please send e-mail to:

jcrudele@nypost.com