339k new jobs in May

So I came across I nice chart using the BLS data showing average jobs by month by president but can’t seem to post it. Goes like this

Ronnie Ray Gun. 175K (thanks Carter!)
Bush the Greater. 75K
Slick Willie 225K
Bush the Lesser 10K
The Tan Suit 125K
The Treasonist (50K)
Dark Brandon 475K

Jim The Saint wasn’t on there but a little sleuthing shows 11M jobs were added for an average of 230K. Verry impressive given the smaller labor force

 

Briefing.com: Hourly In Play (R)

For anyone wanting to keep up with the markets and the news flow I highly recommend this website.

The employment report featured a 339,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls, a moderation in year-over-year average hourly earnings growth to 4.3% from 4.4%, and a bump in the unemployment rate to 3.7% from 3.4%. The report overall has helped sentiment by keeping recession concerns and rate hike concerns at bay for the time being.

 

Too many never-fail indicators that say the recession will come. Recall all of the indicators we had in 2006, yet the recession didn’t really take hold until the latter half of 2008 and unemployment continued rising until 2010. Employment data lags heavily and is almost always the last shoe to drop. It could be another year before we start to see a steep decline in employment. People tend to want to see things play out in real-time and “right now”. These things always play out over a number of years. But the indicators that never fail are there, hence why you have all the economists predicting a recession.

 

Yeah, in the last 50 years the country has added far more jobs under Dem presidents than under Repub presidents. It's not even close.

 

-- The jobs count has now beaten estimates 14 out of the last 17 months
-- 29th straight month of jobs growth
-- Averaging 341,000 jobs per month for the last 12 months

 

Except many experts have now pushed the likelihood of a recession out to 2024.

 

Easy to do when you’re the guy who has come in after the economy has been shut down due to a pandemic and the Gov has dumped and extra 7 Trillion into the economy.

 

This must really suck for you. Hang in there, you'll eventually get that recession you're hoping for.

 

So it was going to be in 2022 in 2021, 2023 in 2022 and 2024 in 2023? I guess they will eventually be right, but I don't think that is a consensus of experts, just the people they put on TV. Here is a consensus of estimates of future real GDP growth.

FOMC Summary of Economic Projections for the Growth Rate of Real Gross Domestic Product, Central Tendency, Midpoint

 

I’ll ask this when has the FED raised rates by 500 basis points in a year and not had a recession?
I will say the increase in the money supply is also some what unprecedented so they may pull off the soft landing, baring some black swan event.

 

That will happen if models like death rate and population control add a could hundred thousand jobs.
Household survey continues to show a different story.
It’s ok, 6 months from now they will revise these numbers negative a couple hundred thousand just like last years BLS reports.
But no one will pay attention to that.

 

That may help the inflation the Fed has been fighting for the last year.
I believe i saw a chart showing the money supply was about 15Trillion pre covid and maxed out at 22 trillion. That’s a ton of clams to run off.

 

Actually none of it sucks for me. My job is pretty much recession proof. I certainly don’t want a recession.
But with QT and rates hikes until the cows come home it’s far more likely than not. To not realize this is rather foolish.

I’ve just been listening to the experts for months and playing contrarian in the market. So far it’s worked out.

If the market tanks I can buy in with all the profits I’ve made in the last 5 months.

 

Cool story bro. The QQQ is up 35% YTD the SPY is up 12% Meta is up 100+% and to my delight NVDA is up 175. If you were actual making big profits you’d be in tech. I’m not aware of any contrarian plays making decent gains this year. If you are in gold you’ve made a paltry 6%.

 

6 months ago the pros were saying stay out of chips as it was in a secular downturn.
AMD
MRVL

Holding the GE Ive had for years against the advice of a few also.

a few small bios.
VKTX for one.

 

Those two aren’t bad at all but I would not call them contrarian plays. They were well positioned. If tou were in Intel or micron you’d be crying in your beer. If you were in TWSC you’d be longing for NVDA. Actually if you were in any you’d be longing for NVDA. Bottom line high beta big tech paid off and it wasn’t a constraian bet. Nazzy was down 33% in 2022. It was the obvious play.

 

Go back and look in late 2022, most experts were call the chip stocks dead due to over supply and lower expected demand.

NVDA has had such a big jump as of late purely due to the AI craze, tough call if it holds at these levels.

 

What will “fun” entail?

 

Some have suggested that interest rates will rise more, causing money to leave “risky” asset classes to guaranteed albeit lower rates of return.
Also there may be liquidity issues causing more smaller banks to “fail” and loans to operate, etc becoming increasingly harder to obtain.