I've said many times that no one should pay much attention to the monthly payroll figures because they are barely more than wild guesses, something the current administration's economic team only recently discovered. Last week's report for August, by itself, doesn't mean much and will be revised so I wouldn't put much emphasis on it. What investors should pay attention [...]
When the June employment figures were released last month, I said there was likely a seasonal adjustment problem with the numbers and that a large part of the government jobs supposedly created would likely be revised away. The employment report was reported as better-than-expected but the details weren’t as positive. Of the total of 147k new jobs reported, only 74k [...]
The stock market was having a good week until just around 10 am last Friday. Stocks rallied during the week as earnings reports were pretty good - with exceptions as always - and the economic news wasn't bad either. On earnings specifically, Q4 '24 is shaping up as the best quarter in the last three years with earnings so far [...]
The December employment report was released last Friday and it was quite a bit better than expected. Expectations were for payrolls to rise by 160,000 on the month but instead 256,000 people found a job and started working. For reference, the 3-month average is a gain of 170,000 so there was a significant acceleration in December. The unemployment rate fell [...]
There has been a lot of talk over the last few months about the US economy slowing but there is scant evidence of it in the economic data. The latest lack of evidence came last Friday with the release of the September employment report which was quite a bit better than expected. The establishment survey showed the economy added 254k [...]
What a difference a day makes! After a two-week correction of nearly 5%, the S&P 500 spent the first part of last week rallying in anticipation of a friendly Fed meeting. That Fed meeting Wednesday produced the expected, namely that a rate cut in September was likely. That pushed the S&P 500 up over 2% from the Fed meeting to [...]
The employment report on Friday seemed like a good one. The unemployment rate was unchanged as the economy added 336,000 jobs in September. The gains were widespread with additions in manufacturing, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation, warehousing, leisure and hospitality, healthcare and education, and government. Average hourly earnings were up 0.2% for the month and 4.2% year-over-year. It was [...]
Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. -Warren Buffett Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own. -Nathan Rothschild Rothschild is said to have made a fortune buying assets in the wake of the Battle of Waterloo so in his case, he meant this literally. Another quote attributed [...]
Your cares and troubles are gone There'll be no more from now on! Happy days are here again! The skies above are clear again Let us sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again! Lyrics: Jack Yellen, Music: Milton Ager That's certainly how it's felt since the turn of the new year with the NASDAQ up nearly [...]
How odd is this economy? Two economic reports from last week, attempting to measure essentially the same thing, reported results that were so different they could be about two different countries. At 9:45 Wednesday morning, S&P Global reported their US Services PMI for July as 47.3 versus June's 52.7, a sudden and large one-month drop. When they reported the preliminary [...]
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