A Darkening Market Sky [Maybe; Investment & Finance Thread Feb. 1]

Weekly investment & finance thread ^ | January 30, 2015 | Freeper Investors

[abb]

Perhaps the most famous “last words” in all of financial history: “But it’s DIFFERENT this time!!!”

[Wyatt's Torch]

NFP +257KK
U3 5.7%

[Wyatt's Torch]

Boom. Huge report.

January payrolls +257k
December revised from +252k to +329k
November revised from +353k to +423k
Wage growth +0.5%

[expat_panama]

--as the unemployment rate soars to the highest it's been since last year!!!

[adding to 'headlines we'll never see' list...]

[expat_panama]

it’s DIFFERENT this time!

We hear that because things are different, and changes are about the only things we can really depend on.  Thing is that what ends up being different us more often than not something that we thought would stay the same.  Like, the city of New York's birth certificate questionaire asking "What is the sex of the person who gave birth to the child?"

[Wyatt's Torch]

[Wyatt's Torch]

[expat_panama]

The WSJ is correct when they point out that payroll employment growth is the strongest its been since 2000, but being correct is not the same as being useful or even honest.  While the U.S. population may be better off than it was a couple years ago, employment growth is still inadequate and conditions are in fact as bad as they were in 2009.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Moving the right direction given demographics.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Longer term look:

[expat_panama]

All my bellyachin' aside, job growth over the past couple years has been super --any way you look at it.

We've heard the extreme left say that the huge change in '09 into years of low % employed was demographic.  The idea being right with the '09 tax hikes millions of old people suddenly retired and thereafter few of the young wanted to grow up to enter the workforce.   We know demographic trends don't do that; they usually tend to emerge over decades. In contrast the economic impact of fiscal policy shifts can show up from quarter to quarter. 

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Turbo Tax has halted filling amidst security concerns

TurboTax Temporarily Halts E-Filing In All States Amid Fraud Concerns

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/02/06/turbotax-temporarily-halts-e-filing-in-all-states-amid-fraud-concerns/

[expat_panama]

good grief! I’m using H&R but so far they’ve no concerns; same situation as with TurboTax right before today’s announcement...

[RicocheT]

This market is crazy. Up one day, down the next, repeat & rinse... If you watch you basket of stocks daily, you get the jitters.

Today, the reaction to the increased job numbers took stocks and precious metals down because the smart guys think the fed will raise interest rates sooner. That’s silly as the fed, just like the banks in Europe, needs to goose the economy by printing easy money way into 2016.

I say if you have a selection of good big cap dividend paying stocks, keep them and don’t sell just because of what you read in the finance pages.

[expat_panama]

We've definitely been having a sideways going nowhere market for some time now.  Worse, all our trusted signals as to future moves have been failing so a classic crash warning gets followed by a run-up and vice versa.  I'm with you with just sitting --not buyin' or sellin', but that doesn't stop me from keeping my watch list up to date.

The reason central banks don't raise rates is not for the economy, they may let folks think that they make economies grow but they know better. All they're good for is for avoiding inflation and they've done such a good job that now they're having to work to avoid deflation.  We're not the only ones w/ sideways bad signal markets I guess.