The Job Man Cometh

Good news today as the unemployment rate dropped to 7%. Fears of a taper have been silenced… at least for today… as the S&P has jumped back above 1800. Calculated Risk has provided a great run down of the employment report from this morning.

What I believe to be the greatest influence moving forward is “the end of austerity” at the state and local government level. It appears that state and local government employment has finally bottomed and is beginning an uptrend.

Usually government jobs have increased during a recovery, but that wasn’t the case in 2009 (illustrated here). The result in the past was an extra level of protection for the economy in the wake of a recession and a quicker recovery. If governments begin to hire at a more normal pace while private sector hiring continues to build, we could finally witness the kind of recovery expected after a normal recession.

Here are a few good reads to close out your week. I hope you have a great weekend:

• Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy (Motley Fool)
• How a few experts feel about this market (CNN)
• Elon Musk makes bank, bro (Time)

It’s a New (mon)Day

My apologies on essentially neglecting my blog over the last week. While I made some tweets… or mainly re-tweets, I was very busy last week with work and didn’t have much time to make a post. I will try to be more resourceful with my time this week. 

Last week it appears that Emerging Markets began to come back to life, and today that narrative appears to be confirmed according to price action in $EFA, $EWZ, $RSX, $INDA, and $GXC. Most of this reincarnation seems to be based on data hinting that worries about China may be overblown.

While September is generally a weak month for US markets, we could see a positive performance if global data continues to turn more positive. This is especially possible in my eyes when you consider August’s extreme weakness. Here are a few articles I enjoyed this morning and I hope you will enjoy them also:

• Doubtful Obama gets political support on Syria… although he doesn’t need it (Sober Look)
• August’s poor job numbers can apparently be blamed on porn (Dr. Ed’s Blog)
• As they say: “Bull markets climb a wall of worry” (Big Picture Blog)

Have a great afternoon!

This should fill the last 2 hours of your Friday

 

With jobless claims missing estimates, you would think the market may experience more turmoil… yet it appears to be clawing it’s way back to even for the end of week closing.

Here are a few links to read so you can appear “busy” at your desk for the remainder of your Friday:

• Small Cap performance since the June bottom hints at “risk-on” (Charts)
• Mish’s take on today’s jobs numbers (Mish… follow his blog!)
• Global Equity Valuations… buy Russia/China? (Horn Capital)
• Guess what? Diversification works in the long run (Mebane Faber Research)

Enjoy your weekends!