June Jobs Report Completely Contrary to ADP – Bears Want It Both Ways

I am late in getting this out. My apologies. As you know we held our quarterly client webinar last night. After I saved the video I could not get the sound to play which we worked on this morning. I also wanted to see what the June jobs report looked like as it was released at 8:30am. On Thursday stock and bond markets sold off hard after ADP showed a massive surge in new jobs for June which would prompt the Fed to hike rates for longer. Bears were out in full force screaming about a bear market. However, instead of crying wolf about recession, they cried about higher interest rates. Um, sorry Charlie. You can’t have it both ways.

Today, the government said that June new job creation was weaker than expected, coming in at 209,000 versus 240,000 expected. It may be “weaker” but it is still a strong overall number, especially so far into this unusual recovery. No one should sneeze at 200,000 new jobs being created in one month although some will point out that it was the lowest number since the end of 2020. The unemployment report went down .1% but that’s just by rounding.

I said this at least a dozen times during the webinar and I will say it again. You cannot have a recession when the jobs market is this strong. Period. Full stop. Don’t argue. While other segments of the economy may be weaker or even weak, recession ain’t here. It wasn’t here last year when we had back to back quarters of negative GDP growth and it ain’t coming right now. It is coming down the road.

The bond market reacted poorly on Thursday after an ugly Wednesday. Yields are approaching levels I would be very excited to buy. 5% on the 2-Year is tasty. Mid-4s on the 10-Year isn’t too shabby.

There are many things I love about Facebook and only a few that I hate. I really like seeing memories pop up each day, seeing our family grow up, and all those pets. Today, I have two memories from 4 and 7 years ago where D and I are about to have a Daddy and D weekend with the other kids at camp and my wife away with friends. I loved seeing the pictures and our plans. 4 years ago, I was still on crutches but off the wheelchair and walker from my fight with the silver maple tree. D and I went to town fireworks and all of the handicapped parking was taken. So my then 11 year old found a policeman and got us a ride to and from the field.

Well, this weekend we have another D and me weekend with my wife visiting my daughter in LA and my other son visiting a friend. I can’t wait! While it’s not the same as when he was kind of a little kid, it’s still amazing although he does tend to sleep until noon. So that gives me the mornings to go to the office, hit balls and work in the yard. I do sense some binging of Jack Ryan.

On Wednesday we bought EWW. We sold EWT, NUGT, PMPIX and EMB. On Thursday we bought PDBC, SPY, SPXU. We sold REGN, TMUS, USHY, PCY and DXHYX.