Category: General News

After a rocky start to global stock trading tonight, China, Japan and U.S. stock futures have all turned nicely higher.

The S&P500 and DJIA futures are both up near 1%–not a giant move higher, but maybe one which is signaling that the world isn’t going to end (of course we all knew that–but are waiting for the markets–to get a bit rational).

Gold is higher, crude oil has turned higher as well.

Thus far we have seen no publicly announced central bank action, but all are thought to be at the ready if necessary. No doubt the ‘crash protection teams’ are at the ready.

With a breather in the downdraft in stocks and interest rates on pause–for now–it is a great time to once again review holdings to see if there are issues that you are laying awake nights worrying about.

While most of the folks we hear from on the website are fairly seasoned in their investing we have many, many newer investors stopping in and reading comments and many of them likely panicked and sold yesterday–using the “buy high and sell low” technique which is pretty normal for newer folks.

It is very likely we will see some more downdrafts in these markets in the days and weeks ahead related to the corona virus, or affects on companies because of the virus, so better to have too much cash than to lay awake nights worrying.

The official government report on employment showed that 225,000 new jobs were added in January–against a forecast in the 165,000 area. ADP had claimed a gain of 291,000 new jobs in their report on Wednesday–but folks don’t pay too much attention to that number as it usually varies substantially from the government number–this time it was directionally correct.

You would think with this strong number and a 3 month average in the 210,000 area that interest rates would move higher–but no–the 10 year treasury is off 4 basis points–moving just below 1.60%. Most certainly the bond market is reacting to the relatively stable wage growth rate which continues to show around 3% or so wage growth–not bad, but not something to worry about

For us this is a fairly strong signal that we won’t see a recession anytime soon–absent a black swan event. I believe that someday (When? Who knows) this will end badly for stocks and bonds–but one could have said this for years and years. Having money in a jar buried in the backyard has continued to be a really poor investment.

REIT Senior Housing Property Trust has changed their name to Diversified Healthcare Trust (DHC) and as such their tickers for baby bonds will be changed. I will be updating all the various lists and security detail pages today sometime. mikeo picked this change up.

Also Zions Bancorporation (ZION) has moved their listings for their preferred stocks and baby bond from NASDAQ to the NYSE so there are preferreds and baby bond tickers that I will be updating in the next day to reflect the new exchange.

In spite of my own skepticism with the various organizations (government and others) releasing jobs numbers it is hard to be negative on job growth.

266,000 jobs simply blew all predictions out of the water, and the last couple of months were revised upward.

Compared to the ADP report of +67,000 jobs in November the government number is simply crazy. Whether either employment report is correct is up for debate I suppose, but I learned long ago that guesses by forecasters are worth absolutely nothing. One thing is almost for sure–there is no recession in the near future.

The equity market are up about 1/2% on the news while the 10 year treasury is up about 6 basis points to 1.855%.

Contrary to previous employment reports we can’t say “this brings the Fed back in play”—at least if we take them at their word without inflation they will not hike rates–and certainly the employment report is not supportive of cutting rates.