Job openings remain strong, what does that mean for our economy? The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, also known as the JOLTs Report, showed job openings of 7.74 million in the month of October topped expectations of 7.5 million and increased from September’s reading of 7.4 million. While it was nice to see the increase, I wouldn’t be surprised to see job openings decline further from here. Openings peaked in March 2022 at over 12 million and have been on the decline since then. While that may sound problematic, these numbers were greatly distorted by the Covid shutdown and then the reo ..read more

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May Retail Sales May retail sales showed the economy is continuing to decelerate, which is exactly what I think we need to see. The release showed retail sales were up 0.1% compared to last month, which missed the estimate of 0.2%. When looking at May 2023, retail sales were up 2.3%. While this doesn’t show a booming economy, I still believe it is a healthy level. Nonstore retailers continued see strong growth as sales were up 6.8%. It appears as the comparisons have gotten more challenging sales growth at food services and drinking places is slowing as sales were up 3.8%. It appears we have s ..read more

Changes in the SEC under Trump that you should know There will be many changes under Trump, but for investors the SEC, which is also known as the Securities and Exchange Commission could be a big one. The current head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, is likely gone for sure. He has been tough on Wall Street and even tougher on cryptocurrencies. It is likely Trump will appoint a new SEC chairperson who will want to have less control over Wall Street. One name on that list is Hester Pierce. She was appointed by Trump in his first term and is one of two current Republican commissioners. She also voted a ..read more

Are you spending like other consumers? Retail sales in the month of October showed an impressive gain of 2.8% compared to last year. With lower gasoline prices, gas stations were a major negative as they declined 7.1% compared to last year. If this group was excluded from the headline number, retail sales would have been up an even more impressive 3.7%. There were several areas of strength as gains were quite broad across various industries, but nonstore retailers, which was up 7.0% and food services and drinking places, which was up 4.3% continued to lead the charge. Interestingly, both furni ..read more

Major changes to the Dow Jones you should know about! The Dow Jones has changed again as Nvidia (NVDA) replaced Intel (INTC) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW) replaced Dow Inc. (DOW). The most recent change in the Dow Jones came on February 26th when Amazon (AMZN) replaced Walgreens (WBA). With the addition of Nvidia, much of the Mag Seven will now be present in the Dow Jones. As I mentioned Amazon was recently added, but Apple and Microsoft have been components for many years. It seems the Dow has really lost relevance as it has trailed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in popularity and performance. I wor ..read more

Don’t let the presidential election be your investment indicator Presidential elections, especially this one, make people become very emotional, but don’t let that sway you away from investing. Looking back to 1950, the S&P 500 index gained 12.1% per year under Democrats and 7.1% under Republicans. So based on that tad bit of information, you would think that Democrats are better for the stock market than Republicans. If we dig deeper, we will see that Nixon had a major negative impact as he left office in August 1974. This was at the end of the 73-74 market crash when the S&P 500 ..read more

T-bills could be your worst investment Right off the bat you’re thinking what how could they say such a thing? Warren Buffett has hundreds of billions of dollars in T-bills! Why do we think it’s the worst investment? First off, Warren Buffett spends all day long reading, researching, analyzing and when he sees a good value investment, he will likely sell what he needs from T-bills to buy those good long-term investments. If you are someone that needs the money in 2 to 3 years, then this belief does not apply to you as T-bills are a great place to have your short-term money. But if you’re a lon ..read more

Where does private equity invest the money, you give them? Private equity invests money in many different areas, but the problem that they are having is that both them and venture-capital are sitting on $2.6 trillion, which is a record high. Ultimately, they are having a hard time finding where to invest. A private equity firm generally has to earn between 12 and 14% on their investments to cover their management fee and pay investors a worthwhile return. One area they have been attracted to is HVAC, also known as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Other areas of interest have include ..read more

Inflation comes in hotter than expected, is that a problem? The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed September headline inflation was up 2.4% compared to last year, which was a little higher than the estimate of 2.3%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy was up 3.3% compared to last year and it also came in a little higher than the expectation of 3.2%. While the numbers were a little hotter than expected, headline CPI was down from last month’s reading of 2.5% and it registered the smallest increase since February 2021. It’s come a long way from the high that was reached in June 2022 when hea ..read more