Think 20/20 Research
Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor and Think 20/20’s Director of Research, will be on America’s Mornings News this Monday (August 9th) morning to talk the economy, the employment situation, double dip prospects, the stock market and investing, and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes can cook up.
All eyes over the past week have once again turned toward the job picture. A surprise? I think not for several reasons. The least of which was the weekly jobless claims number released on Thursday showed higher than expected initial claims. The real driver of renewed interest and pundit positioning on jobs is the monthly employment report for July, which arrives on Friday. This will be the latest score card for not only the health of the economy but also for how effective the current administration and its stimulative efforts have been.
Per Briefing.com, consensus expectations call for an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent in July, up slightly from 9.5 percent in June. The uptick reflects the shared view that the economy shed 70,000 jobs in July. Economists estimate that the private sector created 100,000 jobs but government employment fell 170,000, as more temporary census jobs disappeared.
The notion that private-sector jobs were created in July was backed up by the ADP employment report for July. That report showed the sixth straight month of job gains in the private sector. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the increase was only 42,000 jobs for July and the six-month average is 37,000. Both of those figures are a far cry from not only monthly job losses but also pale in comparison with new weekly unemployment claims.
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor, will be on America’s Morning News this Monday, August 2, to talk the economy, budget deficits, , housing, unemployment, investing, other financial topics and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes want to talk about.
This morning, Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor, will be on America’s Morning News to talk the economy, budget deficits, Bush tax cuts, housing, unemployment, investing and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes want to talk about.
Corporate earnings continued at a fast and furious pace this week, and we started to hear from a wider variety of companies.
Again, however, it was a mixed bag. Solid earnings and outlooks from the likes of Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Morgan Stanley and eBay Inc. were offset by disappointing earnings, outlooks or both by Yum Brands, Starbucks, IBM, Goldman Sachs Group and others. This resulted in a topsy-turvy stock market, which should be expected. Not only is that one of the trials and tribulations of any earnings season, but it is amplified by where we are in the domestic economic recovery.
Or not.
While some may cut to the quick and ask, “How can he say that?” I would quickly point to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s semiannual report to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Wednesday. At the heart of Mr. Bernanke’s testimony, he stated that the Fed continues to forecast moderate growth for the domestic economy this year despite a “somewhat weaker outlook.”
Mr. Bernanke went on to pronounce the outlook as “unusually uncertain.”
We are roughly one-third of the way through June and so far the major stock market indexes are all negative month to date despite the rally under way Thursday morning.
Taking a step back and examining the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, we find that both are down year to date and the same holds true for the Nasdaq Composite Index. The market direction coupled with recent surveys of consumers and businesses, not to mention eroding favor for the current administration, play into growing bearishness when it comes to the stock market.
Case in point: An Investors Intelligence poll, which surveys financial newsletter writers, showed an uptick in bearishness to 31.9% from 28.4% last week. That is the highest bearish level since July 2009.
The roller-coaster stock-market ride continued this past week amid worries over Europe and the euro early in the week followed renewed concern over the state of the economy asrevised gross domestic product (GDP) and weekly jobless-claims data became available.
Concerns over the ability of Europe to solve its debt-related problems and for the eurozone to eventually recover lifted when People’s Bank of China issued a statement dismissing “groundless” reports that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange was evaluating its investment in eurozone debt.
The People’s Bank of China went on to say it was committed to long-term investment in Europe. With People’s Bank of China holding more than $600 billion, the support for Europe lifted the euro and fueled a strong reversal in the stock-market indexes. As I discussed several weeks ago, volatility gives way to opportunity for prepared investors.
Think 20/20’s Chris Versace will be appear on America’s Morning News hosted by John McCaslin on Monday, May 24th to discuss the economy, the stock market and all things in between.