Stocks are on track to end a rough week in the red. Since Monday the DOA has lost about 200 points or 2% while the NASDAQ has shed some 50 points a little more than 2.25%.
The January employment report came in with a loss of 20,000 jobs, December’s loss was revised to 150,000 while Novembers gain increased to 64,000. The net/birth death statistical revision subtracted a much less than expected 427,000, roughly half the expected loss. Overall the employment report is mixed, the unemployment rate fell to 9.7%, the work week increased to 33.3 hours while wages gained .3%, some improvement was seen in temporary help but hardly a positive trend.
The rate of job loss has definitely slowed dramatically, which is a very good start but what is required for true recovery is job creation as the following data illustrates. The number of people unemployed 27-weeks or longer is at a record 6.31 million or 4.1% of the workforce as per the BLS.
The future inflation gauge continues to increase, adding 3 points to 102 in January, while the smoothed annualized growth rate reached 37.6% suggesting that the Fed’s attempts to reflate the economy have achieved some success and that the specter of deflation has become less of a concern of late. I would expect both of these trends to be short lived but will see.
The ECRI Weekly leading Index continues to slip as the top line number fell to 130.9 and the smoothed annualized growth rate slipped to 21.5 during the latest week indicating that the recovery is anything but certain.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. Much like my daily radio show on KPIG 107.5 FM in Santa Cruz California and KPYG FM 94.9 Cayucos/San Luis Obispo California. A thousand Blogs were able to spot the current problems and many began discussing it years before it reached crises proportions. While there were exceptions, and these exceptions are becoming more common, the mainstream media failed to get it and largely continue to do so.
