UPFINA

It appears the labor market is steadily improving despite fears of a slowdown. Keep in mind, it’s very scary to look at the current picture, but rate of change is what matters. Furthermore, stocks actually do better when the unemployment…

The August ADP report showed 428,000 private sector jobs added which missed estimates for 900,000. Some investors wondered why this didn’t cause stocks to fall. Stocks probably ignored this report because it was wildly too pessimistic in July. The initial…

Everyone was wondering if retail sales growth would crash once the $600 in weekly unemployment checks stopped going out in August. The fears of a big decline in consumer spending were too pessimistic. More people are getting jobs. The people…

We are making an adjustment to our economic thesis based on the latest data. We’ve been saying the decline in unemployment benefits hurt consumers, but they planned ahead which is why the initial impact on spending wasn’t severe. We’re changing…

One of the biggest questions in economics is determining when the economy will be able to survive on its own without fiscal stimulus. That’s important because getting legislation passed has been tough. If the GOP wins the Senate, it will…

Let’s be clear, at Powell’s Jackson Hole speech he didn’t deliver anything groundbreaking. However, it doesn’t matter if the Fed’s policy won’t change much. It matters how it impacts the market. The Fed hardly utilized its corporate bond buying program…

The temporary elimination of the $600 in weekly jobless benefits was the biggest negative catalyst for the consumer since COVID-19. We say temporary because states are starting to pay the unemployed $300 to $400 extra from the federal government via…

2020’s recession was/is weird. The current economy is unlike any other recovery we have seen. The housing market is exploding. It has caused the homebuilder ETF to rise 118.6% since the bottom in March which is better than the cloud…

It was very difficult to determine how quickly states would start giving out the $300 or $400 in federal weekly unemployment benefits. So far, Arizona is the only one to start giving out the money, but 26 states are now…

It’s always difficult to tell what’s priced in. Sometimes markets move on the obvious. Sometimes the action is so bizarre, there’s nothing you can make of it other than saying it’s speculation. While that’s the case, it’s fairly obvious everyone…