The September Non-Farm Payroll Report came in with a net increase of just 142k jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.1% and the labor force participation rate dropped to the October 1977 low of 62.4%. Average hourly earnings fell 0.04% and the workweek slipped to 34.5 hours. There were significant downward revisions of 22k…
While gold remains unchanged, silver prices are surging higher this morning as crude oil jumps supposedly on geopolitical tensions… but technical resistance looks key… Silver is breaking above its 100-day moving-average and Crude is pulling away from its 50-day moving average (after being glued to it for a month). Charts: Bloomberg
If you don’t think financial markets have been utterly destroyed by central bank intrusion then how can you explain Friday’s 460 Dow point reversal higher after the post-NFP low? It was pure machine rage triggered by another implied “lower for longer” Fed policy signal. While I think the BLS establishment survey isn’t worth the paper it’s manipulated on, it did take a…
The expected risk premium for the Global Market Index (GMI) dipped again in September. GMI — an unmanaged, market-value weighted mix of the major asset classes — is projected to earn an annualized 3.2% over the “risk-free” rate in the long term. (For details on the equilibrium-based methodology that’s used to generate the forecasts each…
The stock market has averaged compound total returns of about 9% a year over the last 100+ years. This means a doubling of your money about every 8 years. When your money doubles every 8 years on average you will eventually become very wealthy. And that’s only if you match the market returns. Surely, some investors should beat…
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke has argued that the poor productivity has held back growth in the US. This seems true in Europe as well, but it has an additional problem: nonperforming loans. As a fraction of all EU loans, the nonperforming share has doubled since 2009 to one trillion euros or 9% of the region’s…
Investors in or near retirement should be aware of portfolio design leading fund sponsors suggest as appropriate Leading target date funds appear to generally have less severe worst drawdowns that a US 60/40 balanced fund The funds have slightly higher yields than a US 60/40 balanced fund Target date funds have underperformed a US 60/40…
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Despite the bearish start to the week on Monday and a bearish initial response to Friday morning’s employment report for September, the bulls managed to reversal course Friday afternoon to hammer out a big gain for that day and even a small gain for the week. A couple of the key indices even managed to…
GBPUSD: GBP faces downside pressure following its rejection candle print on Friday. This was formed after unsustained rally and the pair looks to weaken further having given away most of its intra day gains during Monday trading session. It looks to take out the 1.5166/33 zone, its strong support. If this occurs, further weakness is…
