Basically everything was up to one degree or another on the surprisingly weak jobs report–the economy added only 266,000 jobs–for April. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed higher by 0.74% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.66%. The NASDAQ Composite moved up 0.88% and the Russell 2000 finished ahead 1.38%.
The U.S. economy added just 266,000 jobs in April, far fewer than the 1 million economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected, the Labor Department reported this morning. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in April from 6.0% in March
U.S. private employers in April added the most jobs in seven months, according to data from the ADP Research Institute released today. Company payrolls rose by 743,000 in the month. That’s a big gain from the upwardly revised 565,000 gain in March. And it’s the biggest money gain in jobs in seven months. That increases worries that Friday’s April jobs report from the Commerce Department will show a gain for the month of nearly 1 million new jobs. Good news for workers, of course, but that would increase fears in the financial markets that we’re seeing the kind of sustained, multi-month gains in jobs that the Federal Reserve has said it needs to see before it begins to raise interest rates.
Researchers looking for a way to improve the tolerance of the Arabica coffee plant that accounts for 56% of global coffee production may have found their cuppa in Sierra Leone. Coffea stenophylla grows at a mean annual temperature up to 12.24 degrees higher than Arabica. And coffee tasters say, according to Bloomberg, it has a flavor similar to Arabica rather than to the more temperature tolerant Robusta coffee used now in instant and other bulk coffees. Global coffee production is threatened by rising temperatures
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. The twenty-second YouTube video “Don’t Panic: 3 Picks for This Rotation” went up today.
Wheat prices hit new highs at $7.46 a bushel at the end of April. That the highest since February 2013. Corn climbed to a new eight year high. The day soybeans rose for a tenth straight session to reach on eight year high.
When the prices of farm commodities climb, it’s tough times ahead at the grocery store for consumers. But it’s good times ahead for farmers and that means increasing sales of tractors and other farm equipment for Deere (DE). I’m adding the shares to my 12-18 month Jubak Picks Portfolio
If any investor wants to figure out what trends to invest in and when are the investing opportunities created by global climate change and efforts to limit the rise in our planet’s temporary, you need to look at every system of signs for clues. That means looking at the obvious, the political discourse as represented by the climate change plans of the Biden administration and the positions staked out by its opponents on the right and left. It means looking at the slightly less obvious, the advertising and public relations spending by companies trying escape the worst effects of the efforts to control climate change (oil companies, for example) and by companies trying to position themselves as champions of the fight to save the planet. And it means studying the much less obvious such as the climate change accounting principles I described in Part 1 of this Special Report to see which actions will be privileged and which penalized by the rules for keeping the books. From my own take on those systems, I’ve come up with a list of climate change trends that I think are worth investing in–and a calendar for when I think you ought to put your money into these trends. In Part 3 of this Special Report I’ll give you the names of 10 stocks that I’d look to use to ride these trends. Today’s segment, though, is devoted to laying out a sense of when to put your money into specific phases of the overall global climate change trend. I’ve divided this “calendar” into three parts.
The rise in the long end of the Treasury market resumed this week after inflation expectations hit a multi-year high. The Federal Reserve didn’t help. After its Wednesday meeting Chair Jerome Powell stressed that the central bank views any jump in price pressures as fleeting and it won’t be dialing back crisis-level monetary support any time soon. Short interest in the $12 billion iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) rose to 25% of shares outstanding this week. That’s the highest level since early 2017, according to data from IHS Markit. Investors and traders continue to dump the long Treasury and the ETF: the iShares 20+ Treasury ETF has posted outflows every day this week, putting it on track for weekly withdrawals of over $1 billion. According to Bloomberg that’s the worst stretch since November. The ETF is down 12% in 2021.
The U.S. economy is likely to have added 978,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will report on Friday May 5, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be up from March’s gain of 916,000 jobs and would be the biggest increase since August 2020. It would probably send the unemployment rate down to 5.7% in April from 6% in March. The report will also put added pressure on the Federal Reserve to begin to reduce its program of buying $120 billion a month in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to support the economy. An initial reduction in the size of that program would be seen by the financial markets as a sign that the central bank is beginning to think about raising interest rates.
In the week that through Wednesday, investors move $57.3 billion into cash, according to EPFR. This was the largest flow into cash since the March 2020 pandemic turmoil that resulted in an extraordinarily short bear market in March.At the same time flows into stock mutual funds and ETFs dropped to just $10.5 billion. That well below the $58 billion that flowed into this asset class during the record week for cash flows in early February. I’d consider this a test.
When it comes down to company earnings, we’re seeing a huge lag in revenue growth for companies in the service sector. Wyndham Hotels and Resorts (WH),for example, which reported first quarter results today, April 30, saw revenue fall to $303 million in the first quarter of 2021 from $410 in the first quarter of 2020. But, and I think this is the clear implication of the first quarter GDP numbers, those service companies will close that gap in the June quarter as companies open more services–Disney (DIS) opened its California theme parks today, for example–and consumers feel safer in going to theme parks or restaurants or gyms.
The value of all domestically produced goods and services has almost recovered to the pre-pandemic high recorded by the fourth quarter of 2019 of an inflation adjusted annualized $19.3 trillion but the U.S. stock market has raced well ahead of that recovery. The Standard and Poor’s 500 is up 29.3% from the end of 2019 to the close on April 29.
