Morning Note: Trust your intuition on the jobs report, but don’t on investing…

Monday, May 10, 2021

Morning Note: Trust your intuition on the jobs report, but don’t on investing…

In Friday’s morning note I closed my opening muse on the employment setup with the following:

“You see, ADP released their jobs report on Wednesday and it came in at +742k, so that’s a head scratcher. And, digging into this morning’s number (well, borrowing from Peter Boockvar’s digging), the selective shutdowns of auto factories (due to lack of semiconductors), temporary jobs plunging 111k, and the construction trade coming in with zero net new hiring — as lumber, and apparently workers, are hard to come by, at least with reasonable price tags — explains some (but not enough) of this morning’s surprise…

And, lastly, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from this tidbit:

Well, economist Peter Boockvar (borrowing from him once again) got his hands on this chart comparing the on vs off unemployment benefits for folks who live in Pennsylvania. I suspect “your own conclusions” more or less comport:

Asian equities leaned slightly green overnight, with 9 of the 16 markets we track closing higher.

Europe’s struggling this morning, with 12 of the 19 bourses we follow currently in the red.

U.S. major averages are especially mixed: Dow up 227 points (0.65%), SP500 down 0.01%, SP500 Equal Weight up 0.53%, Nasdaq 100 down 1.20%, Nasdaq Comp down 1.15%, Russell 2000 down 0.51%.

The VIX (SP500 implied volatility) is up 3.42%. VXN (Nasdaq 100 i.v.) is up 6.23%.

Oil futures are down 0.40%, gold’s up 0.51%, silver’s up 0.63%, copper futures are up 0.03% and the ag complex is down 1.17%.

The 10-year treasury is up (yield down) and the dollar is down 0.12%.

Led by metals miners, AT&T, Verizon, materials stocks and industrials stocks — but dragged by MP (rare earth miner), solar stocks, emerging market stocks and ag futures — our core mix is up 0.20% to start the day.

“Don’t trust your intuition or what you think is true. These will be biased by your experiences, environment, and political persuasion. If you don’t have data, you don’t have knowledge.” –Euan Sinclair

I couldn’t agree more!

Have a great day!
Marty

Marty Mazorra CFP®, ChFC®

Founder & Co-CIO

is the author of "Making Lemonade: A Bright View on Investing, on Financial Markets and on the Economy" and "Leaving Liberty?: Essays on Politics and Free Market Thinking".

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