Cryptos and Oil

About the only investments managing to close higher today were cryptos and oil. Following another rough week that saw the major averages close in the red. Since last Friday’s close the S & P 500 slipped 108 points or 1.6%, the NASDAQ fell 283 points or 1.26% while the DOW dropped 944 points or almost 2%.

Electric Car Fail

The losses from electric vehicles continue to pile up following manufacturing missteps, and changing consumer sentiment. Over the last year or so Stellantis has written of 26 billion, Ford 19 billion, Honda just announced a 15.7 billion Dollar write off, GM has torched 6 billion while VW Group visited the confessional to cough up 5.4 billion. Tesla owners seem to swear by them, but other brands, not so much.

Labor Supply and Demand

Prior to 2025 it was generally assumed that the economy needed to produce about 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with an expanding population. In 2025 the Trump administrations crackdown on illegal immigration and illegal aliens in general dramatically altered the demographics of labor supply. Instead of millions of illegals entering the country each year and swelling the labor supply. Millions started leaving voluntarily and otherwise. Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts its Household Survey data. To align with the latest population estimates released by the Census Bureau. Usually, this occurs in January with the revised data released all at once in March. The latest revision shows some very dramatic trends. First up the Census Bureau warned that net migration is about to go negative. Secondly the labor force fell by 1.03 million in 2025. The chart below from WolfStreet really illustrates these demographic shifts.

Despite historically anemic job growth for the better part of a year. The unemployment rate hasn’t really changed and hovers at the low end of the scale, currently just 4.4%. Additionally wage growth has continued along at a solid clip since the beginning of Trump 2.0. This is another trend that the doom and gloom crowd in the MSM got completely wrong. As they loudly exclaimed that unemployment would rise, wages would fall. Both leading to a significant recession if not worse after adding in a tariff inspired trade war.

Have a great week I’ll be back on Friday.