A focus on the job numbers and the correction in the Chinese market
Chris is here for our third editorial for today. We dive into the US job numbers that were released this morning and what it means for the overall economy. Next we chat about the 20% fall over the last month in the Chinese market.
Click download link to listen on this device: Download Show
Good discussion into the Fundamental macro data guys. Thanks for your insights Cory and Chris T.
Everyone have a great Independence Day Holiday Weekend!
*There are some good charts on each of the metals that you can “tab” through at the bottom, with Jim’s annotations for the technical indicators he sees.
*Also – there are 4 good hyper-linked articles on the following technical analysis tools embedded in this article. They are very well written.
– Sharpening Your Trading Skills: Using Bollinger Bands
– Sharpening Your Trading Skills: The MACD Indicator
– Sharpening Your Trading Skills: Moving Averages
– Sharpening Your Trading Skills: The Relative Strength Index (RSI)
Thursday’s Charts for Gold, Silver and Platinum and Palladium, July 2
Thursday July 02, 2015
Palladium sure ended the week with a bang on those charts.
Participation rate……..DOWN BIG……lost jobs and wages going nowhere…….
This is why the Jobs numbers are so irrelevant now. They don’t come close to accurately reflecting who’s out of work, or shifted from full-time down to part time or 2-3 part time jobs.
Many have just given up and pulled themselves out of the job market all together so they can get handouts (I mean entitlements) from sucking the government teet.
Irrelevant? Are you nuts? They accurately tell us how healthy the economy really is!
Good one Big Al ! Yes, those government numbers are bullet-proof and good times are here again. The proof is in the pudding. 🙂
This is a small snippet from a very good article out on Zero Hedge that discusses the jobs numbers. I’ll post the link at the bottom of this quote:
“Job Growth In 16-54 Group Still Non-Existent”
“In one of the most over-hyped, and primarily useless, economic data points thrown at investors every month is the employment report. Why there is such a focus on this particular report is beyond me. However, there are several points of interest/concern with the most recent report.
First, the employment for June was not only weaker than estimated but previous two months were also revised lower by 60,000 jobs in total.
Secondly, part-time jobs soared by 161,000 while full-time jobs collapsed by nearly 350,000. However, even worse was the addition of 640,000 individuals that are no longer counted as part of the work force. That led to the decline in the unemployment rate to just 5.3%. (Think about that for a moment. Almost 94 million individuals sitting outside the labor force and the BLS suggests that 94.7% of the population is employed.)
Lastly, the most important aspect of the employment report is the number of individuals between the ages of 16-54 that are employed as it relates to the entire population of that age group. The reason for concern is this age group is primarily responsible for working, buying cars, houses, iPhones, and paying into the welfare support system. The problem, as shown in the chart below, is that the employment-to-population ratio for this group is not improving.”
3 Things: Valuations, Employment, Sectors
07/03/2015
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-03/3-things-valuations-employment-sectors
There are some interesting charts on that article above as well worth reviewing.
What are you talking about Frank? The numbers were great. Almost 1/4 million jobs added and unemployment now approaching 5%.
Happy days are here again! Thank God for the sensible D’s.
White House with a rainbow wishing O…….NO……….
Maybe it’s a double-rainbow Frank…..Das Boot.
Diversification is important. I bought CAG early this year, and some Ag stocks that did not do so well.
I still like bio/pharma, beginning to top but not there yet.
HL, OF WHICH I ONLY OWN A FEW THOUSAND SHARES, HAS JUST HAD AN ANALYST UPGRADE.
One of the sites I monitor for information, as well as brokerage sites ,is 247wallst.com.
As with ALL sites I always first assume information is false/has an agenda, unless proven otherwise.
Good points on diversification CFS and on the tip about 247wallst.com.
As for diversification, I agree with Chris and Al, but I don’t think most people are qualified to be portfolio managers, and that is what Mutual Funds are for. You can get low risk, or high growth, or micro cap, or emerging market Mutual funds that will keep you diversified. There are also financial planners if you want a portfolio to managed with people that do that 24-7. Again, most people can’t study every sector simultaneously to follow everything, so they hire and expert, or just get a few mutual funds (that is all that 401k or IRA typically have in them other than bonds anyway, and now we also have ETFs that are like mutual funds in that they are diversified within a sector).
Chris Temple made the point yesterday that you wouldn’t want a department store that just sold shoes without the other items, but I with differ with that opinion in that there are businesses called “shoe stores” that only sell shoes and they are quite successful. There are companies that just sell computers, or flowers, or suits, or cars. That’s called having a focus. Some restaurants offer multiple types of food (like TGI Fridays or Ruby Tuesdays) and that is a model that works, but some just sell pizza or subs or coffee, and they are also quite successful. Both models work.
The commodity sector has been in a 7 year bear, and CRB index will be bottoming over the next few months, as mentioned at the beginning of this year. The PM bear market is just getting to the 4 year mark and will be bottoming along with the commodities and will likely come out of the gate first if the turds hit the fan in the fall.
This is a perfect time to be diversified in many sectors to spread the risk; however, for a small percentage of ones assets the commodities and energy sector will offer much more upside than the general markets over the next few years. For those that can identify quality companies in this sector this year and hold those stocks for 3 years, versus McDonald’s, the commodities are going to outperform 3-1.
There are thousands of investing sites that cover Apple, Dell, McDonalds, tech stocks & social media, bio tech, healthcare, utilities, dividend paying blue chips, airlines, etc…. There are a fair amount that cover energy (mostly Oil, some coal, Solar, Wind, and much fewer cover Nuclear or new forms of Green energy)…..There are very few any more that seriously cover the Precious Metals, Mining, and exploration in energy. This is what always stands out about the KER report.
Your favorite sites section has many of the remaining sites that have survived or tried to survive this 4 year bear, and they’ll all double or triple in readership size once this sector rebounds over the next few years. At that point tons on new Precious metals sites will pop up trying to get in on the action.
I’d rather focus my “Speculative” money on the commodities (miners) and energy (small producers and exploration) stocks that are just beat up bad (having lost 60-90% of their value), and ride up the next wave of the Secular Bull market in PMs.
To me the biggest signs we are nearing a bottom in the Commodity and Energy sectors, other than the bankruptcies and M&A activity continuing to pick up, is everyone that is starting to jump ship at the worst time (the bottom). That’s how it is at any bottom though. When half of the miners switched to marijuana or biotech, and commodity experts like Frank Holmes start an ETF called (JETS) on the airline industry, then we are getting near the bottom. When PM focused sites, start plugging all kinds of unrelated stocks, then they cease to be a “Shoe Store” or “coffee shop” or “pizza place” and have decided to become a Walmart, or Dollar General. This means they have changed their business model. It may work and it may not work, but you’ll be competing with the “Walmarts” of the investing world.
Just a thought.
*That was a repost from what I put on Chris’s yesterday blog earlier this morning, but I haven’t changed my mind in the last few hours : – )
Great last paragraph, Shad!
Thanks Man
Thanks Big Al.
I thought I would help by mentioning a site like
http://Www.247wallst.com
Because while it is tedious to sift thru’ a lot of info, I find that site less biased than, say, Bloomberg. I find bloomberg has a democratic political slant, and there is only so much socialist propaganda I can take. (Being politically a little to the right of
Ghengis Khan.)
CFS – Thanks again for posting the recommendation of 247wallst.com.
Well Professor, you are definitely in good company here!
The thing I am concerned about in the market, in general, is that everything is manipulated nowadays. There are NO free markets.
I ask myself, “What will make the Fed stop supporting the stock market?”
Frankly, I cannot think of anything really, short of a financial system collapse.
As long as various countries don’t get too greedy, and take it in turn pumping in money, so that no one currency gets out of line: ” what is there to stop any country in the world continuing to print money, buy their stocks and other country’s stocks and currencies?”
We could go on like this until something breaks, but that could be a long, long time!
You make a really good point, Professor!
Does it make sense that any country, no matter how safe that country is, should have negative interest rates? Of course not, but we have such a situation. Proof positive of manipulation.
What’s to stop central banks printing? Printing……..
I don’t know.
If you are wondering why SAND, one of my bigger holdings, just had a big gain today…..
It had a lot of shorts, and today some 3-4% of those covered.
This is a sign of a turnaround, perhaps.
Yes, Matthew and I were discussing how the short squeeze could be the energy behind this move up today in the miners on Rick’s blog from yesterday when discussing GDXJ support levels.
Sandstorm Gold Ltd. (SAND)
3.17 +0.30(+10.45%) AMEX – As of 4:02PM EDT
That’s a nice bounce of 10.45$ – Sandstorm is the streaming company with the most upside on a percentage increase basis. I’m a huge fan of Nolan Watson the CEO.
That should have said a nice bounce of 10.45% (not 10.45$) in Sandstorm (SAND).
(sorry the 4 -$ and 5% keys right next to each other and in frequent use)
Perhaps, but I would not hold my breath too long!
Me either. I only expect this short-covering bounce to be limited in time, and then we move further back down in this “falling wedge” pattern into mid-late July. This is the zone where the March and Nov lows may get tested in Gold, and that may pressure the miners again along with.
I’ve been waiting on this month of July to see what finally shakes out on this bottom testing in PMs since February, and we have tons of other drivers to keep things saucy the next few weeks. I’m going to be watching this market like a hawk in mid-late July.
On July 3, 2015 at 8:00 am,
Shad says:
Gold Acting Tepid At Best, Hits 3.5 Month Low – Gary Wagner | Kitco News
July 2, 2015 – 4:22pm
by Gary Wagner
http://thegoldforecast.com/video/gold-acting-tepid-best-hits-35-month-low-gary-wagner-kitco-news
I still find some energy stocks cheap. So those are not close to topping.
You will be particularly interested in the segmens on the Weekend Show with Byron King.
December 2013 I made 50 to 103% returns on Chinese automotive, oil, and real estate stocks. Didn’t look back after I took MY profits. Maybe I should have looked back this year. lol 🙂
Fed not cutting rates. Start buying utilities and REITS. Been buying WEC, WR, AVA, LNT, STOR, OHI, DLR, O since February. When the fed says uncle they are going to rebound like a mofu.