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OldBrownsFan

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5 hours ago, OldBrownsFan said:

Tour right off the bat I was thinking more part time job creation under Obama and ding ding ding...one quick google search

The devil is always in the details....

I probably should have given you a pop quiz. I suspect you didn't know what a part time job creator Obama was.

Investing.com -- A new study by economists from Harvard and Princeton indicates that 94% of the 10 million new jobs created during the Obama era were temporary positions.

The study shows that the jobs were temporary, contract positions, or part-time "gig" jobs in a variety of fields.

https://www.investing.com/news/economy/nearly-95-of-all-job-growth-during-obama-era-part-time,-contract-work-449057

Touche'... but you did previously think Trumps job count was greater... didn't you?

I had no knowledge of the job breakdown... and I still do not (explained below), but first let's look at your find.

It has no data. It cites a study, but does not provide a link. It ends with a demonstrably false assertion.

Quote

Under Obama, 1 million fewer workers, overall, are working than before the beginning of the Great Recession.

I can find no support for this statement whatsoever. Bureau of Labor and Statistics Bureau of Economic Analysis data puts 2008 FTEs at 127,127,000 and 2016's at 132,927,000. So someone was working those additional 5,800,000 FTE jobs that were added over the 8 years.

**EDIT above due to wrong Bureau cited**

FTE is the abbreviation for Full-Time Equivalent. So it converts part-time to full-time, e.g., two 20-hr/week jobs become one 40-hr/week jobs or 1 FTE.

I'm using the FTE figures because I cannot find Bureau stats for full-time jobs only. There are Full+Part time tables and there are the FTE tables, but no tables for Full-time only.

Here's the data...

image.thumb.png.18cf5829802983399cd1a2fb7ca1a284.png

To be continued...

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Continued...

Not sure why, but for whatever reason I cannot find the monthly data I found a day or two ago that included 2019, so this has turned into 2-year comparison. If I find the source of the other data, I'll let you know and update.

Using the data in the prior post we simply subtract the figure two year's prior to 2016 for Obama's total and two prior to 2018 for Trump's. Doing so we find....

Obama: 132,927 - 128,130 = 4,797 or 4,797,000 FTE jobs added.

Trump: 137,428 - 132,927 = 4,501 or 4,501,000 FTE jobs added.

So Obama added 296,000 for FTEs. Closer, quite possibly due to your part-time job point, but still no cigar.

 

Best I can do for now.

 

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On 3/18/2020 at 9:20 AM, OldBrownsFan said:

BTW - do you ever remember the recovery summer happening that  Obama promised ? Neither do I . 

Shit...I don't even remember him saying anything about a recovery summer...

Which one was it supposed to be?

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4 hours ago, tiamat63 said:

Speaking of stock market.

 

 

Not again... who was it that was texting sell orders in the Rose Garden?

Pubs gonna hang Burr... he was too cooperative with Dems in the Senate Intel investigation, but will they also take down one of their Trump lovin' gals?

Apparently FNC is ready to...

Sen. Kelly Loeffler reportedly 'dumped millions' in stock before coronavirus tanked markets

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kelly-loeffler-coronavirus-stock

 

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4 hours ago, Westside Steve said:

Growth probably slows down as you approach an unprecedented employment level.

Close enough... and with that Steve, proves he's not just a pretty face...

Although points off for "unprecedented"... one of Trumps most overused terms of late... and mostly misused.

 

Certainly as full employment is approached the rate of job addition has to wane. Part of the offset Trump enjoyed, however, was the same that Obama did late in his 2nd term... namely that while employment figures looked low, there were a lot of workers reentering the job market after growing weary of the search much earlier.

Also helped that a lot of states, big blue states enacted minimum wage increases... and many large companies followed suit nationwide including WalMart... far and away our largest private employer.

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40 minutes ago, OldBrownsFan said:

I thought it could be true that Obama had more job numbers but I also believed many of Obama's jobs were part time low paying service jobs.

And what I've done so far tends to say you are correct to some extent. Going to the FTE approach shrank the gap considerably. And if there is 2019 FTE data in the BEA site somewhere that gap might be eliminated.

But regardless...

I think I've shown that job growth hasn't been significantly differnt in the Trump era and that GDP growth hasn't been significantly better, so why the insistance by you and other Trump supporters that he has the economy booming?

The stock market? Something else?

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Finally... my market report...

except now it's for yesterday...

7 hours ago, Tour2ma said:

Going to put this in the stock market report for the day as well...

On rumors of Trump making major FDA-related announcements at the morning, Covid-19 presser the market was up dramatically from overnite futures' lows which carried over into the first hour of trading. After opening down about 3%, the S&P rose to about 6% on the rumors.

When it turned out that this malaria drug was the "big news" the market started selling off and the S&P closed with a 0.5% gain.

Why the disappointment?

We've known about the potential of existing anti-malaria drugs to treat Covid-19 since early February.

How did 'the market" hear this so much earlier?

The Chinese told us.

Did a little selling today around the peak (pure luck) and then loaded a couple sell orders at session-high prices in case market rallied into the close... It didn't... so no added sales.

Futures are pretty much flat...

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4 hours ago, Tour2ma said:

Close enough... and with that Steve, proves he's not just a pretty face...

 I've heard Economist in the past calling 4% full employment. I'm assuming the reasoning is that not everybody wants or will take a job.  Who knows? Don't know where that guideline came from but...

Although points off for "unprecedented"... one of Trumps most overused terms of late... and mostly misused.

 maybe if nitpicking is going to be the weapon used here. Too lazy to look the web to find out when it's been lower.

 

Certainly as full employment is approached the rate of job addition has to wane. Part of the offset Trump enjoyed, however, was the same that Obama did late in his 2nd term... namely that while employment figures looked low, there were a lot of workers reentering the job market after growing weary of the search much earlier.

 I suppose somebody could mention we'd have to include it all which would encompass the abject failure of his first term? 😏 Then we have to add in whatever might happen in Trump's second term. People say it's one of the slowest recovery is in history. Maybe there are reasons for that.

Also helped that a lot of states, big blue states enacted minimum wage increases... and many large companies followed suit nationwide including WalMart... far and away our largest private employer.

 I'd have to see the numbers with an a b line. Some big booty states are paying well over minimum wage anyway and some big red States. And who knows how many people on that low and scale of employment have been replaced by ATMs and fast food kiosks. But I think the minimum wage is a boogeyman issue.

WSS

 

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First... Tour's Morning Market Report...

Markets are up about 1% amid a lot of chatter about technical oversold indicators, including a note from a leading Wall St. Technician, plus word from a couple major hedge funds that they have exited all of their short positions.

Does that add up to being "a bottom"? No... at least not any guarantee of one, but it does qualify as good news.

One hedge fund Mgr. was on this AM saying a 5-10% bounce from this point would be consistent with history, but (there's always a but with these guys) then the market likely falls to even lower levels.

As I have said before... such is life in a Bear market.

 

And 12 minutes into the trading day... the market is fading. We'll see how it goes...

 

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3 hours ago, Westside Steve said:

Close enough... and with that Steve, proves he's not just a pretty face...

 I've heard Economist in the past calling 4% full employment. I'm assuming the reasoning is that not everybody wants or will take a job.  Who knows? Don't know where that guideline came from but...

Although points off for "unprecedented"... one of Trumps most overused terms of late... and mostly misused.

 maybe if nitpicking is going to be the weapon used here. Too lazy to look the web to find out when it's been lower.

 

Certainly as full employment is approached the rate of job addition has to wane. Part of the offset Trump enjoyed, however, was the same that Obama did late in his 2nd term... namely that while employment figures looked low, there were a lot of workers reentering the job market after growing weary of the search much earlier.

 I suppose somebody could mention we'd have to include it all which would encompass the abject failure of his first term? 😏 Then we have to add in whatever might happen in Trump's second term. People say it's one of the slowest recovery is in history. Maybe there are reasons for that.

Also helped that a lot of states, big blue states enacted minimum wage increases... and many large companies followed suit nationwide including WalMart... far and away our largest private employer.

 I'd have to see the numbers with an a b line. Some big booty states are paying well over minimum wage anyway and some big red States. And who knows how many people on that low and scale of employment have been replaced by ATMs and fast food kiosks. But I think the minimum wage is a boogeyman issue.

4% Unemployment - Yes, it is the level economists have traditionally regarded as "full". It is the target level the Fed uses for one of it's dual mandates (the other being 2% inflation). Their basis, as I understand it, is that employment levels above 96% begin to exert upward pressure on inflation.

Unprecedented - It's just me... I watch the Corona Task Force updates daily and it is used again and again. It's Trump's go to "not my fault" buzzword. So wasn't nitpicking an argument of yours just a reaction to the word itself. Same is true of the phrase "no worries" that came into my wife's vernacular a year or so ago. She's finally stopped saying it around me. At least Trujp hasn't used that one...

Obama's First term - It wasn't, and I think the GDP data I posted somewhere in this thread is proof of that, despite the clear need for additional fiscal stimulus that was apparent in Summer, 2010. But the Dems were too cautious, to concerned about the Fall elections in which they got killed anyway. Then once Boehner (followed by Ryan) was Speaker and Mitch ran the Senate any hope for stimulus was gone because... as you know... deficits are bad when there's a Dem in the White House.

Min Wage - Don't know what "a" and "b" you want, but it's fairly obvios I'd think that a lot of folks will work for $15 an hour that won't work for $8. But, yes, some states have tighter labor markets than the National average and have to pay even more than the raised Minimum. North Dakota in its shale boom was a prime example... still may be. Once the oil workers started rolling in there weren't enough people to fill the increased demand for restaurants, hotel/motels, and other "min wage" jobs.

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An hour into the day and markets are back up... S&P is up ~0.75%...

 

Why quote the S&P?

While the Dow (short for the Dow Jones Jones Industrial Average or DJIA) is most often cited when the market moves are reported on the nightly news. Why? It was the first and because now it is the biggest number, it's the sexiest. However, investors pretty much consider it to be a relic and don't pay much attention to it.

The Dow is made up of only 30 stocks and has been at that number since 1928. Fine for an era when the total number of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) were less than 300... not so much today with 2800 listings... and that's just the NYSE. The NASDAQ lists 3300.

Here's a good read on the Dow's history... https://www.thebalance.com/understanding-the-dow-jones-industrial-average-djia-357912

So most investors follow the S&P 500, short for the Standards & Poo'rs 500, which cuts across all exchanges to combine the nations 500 largest companies by market cap (# of shares x $ per share).

 

If these little asides are useful to anyone here, I'm happy to do more as topics come up by either me or you. If not, I'll go post football stuff...

Let me know...

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Gov of NY expanded stay at home order to all non-essential, state employees...

Market heard news and rolled over...

S&P now down 1.9%...

 

EDIT: Also first day that the NYSE floor has been closed. It was announced yesterday after a floor trader tested positive. All NYSE trading is electronic now whereas the floor handled 20% or so previously. "Humans in the loop" has been central to the NYSE philosophy.

NASDAQ has been all electronic for years... not sure exactly how long.

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Any of you still interested in this thread likely know that the market fell about 4% in the last couple hours before close on Friday.What you may not be aware of is why... or at least what looks to be one of the major contributing reasons.

On Friday a reasonably sized clearing firm named Ronin Capital was "unable to meet its capital requirements at CME", a/k/a became insolvent. When it did the CME seized the firm portfolio and auctioned it off. Ronin held no positions for outside clients so any damage was limited to the CME Group.

The CME or Chicago Mercantile Exchange (a/k/a The CME Group) is a very old exchange which deals in bonds, metals and other commodities and all "futures" rather than stocks. A clearing firm, also known as a clearing house, is:

Quote

... an organization associated with an exchange to handle the confirmation, settlement and delivery of transactions. Clearing corporations fulfill the main obligation of ensuring transactions are made in a prompt and efficient manner. Clearing corporations are also referred to as "clearing firms" or "clearing houses."

In order to make certain that transactions run smoothly, clearing corporations become the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer. In other words, they take the offsetting position with a client in every transaction. For example, if two investors agree to the terms of a financial transaction, such as the purchase or sale of a corporate security, a clearing corporation will act as a middle man, facilitating the purchase on one end and the sale on the other end of the transaction.

Such transactions encompass futures, options contracts, stock and bond trades, and margin money. In addition, clearing corporations have a range of tasks including regulating the delivery of securities and reporting trading data.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clearingcorporation.asp

These firms are also allowed to trade the markets with cash on hand or borrowed on margin. Apparently Ronin's specific problem area were losses in futures trading of the CBOE's VIX (the Chicago Board of Exchange's Volatility Index).

Anyway... while Ronin was nothing on the order of importance of Bear Stern at the start of the financial market crash of 2008, it was nonetheless a failure event that is thought to have rattled the market.

As one of my favorite Trader/Analysts said... we had to expect at least one of these companies to fail, and may well see another couple, but this is a part of the bottoming process. He added notes that the bond market remained stable and the VIX did not spike on the news . Those can be taken as encouraging signs.

 

Futures thru the weekend were mixed until the Senate failed to act on the stimulus plan it has been discussing. After that fail they fell and are down about 4.5%...

 

 

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Yesterday, Monday, was generally a down day, but had more mixed results than recently... at least in my portfolio.

Recently most of my stocks have moved in lock step up or down with two notable exceptions: Zoom Video (ZM) and Teledoc (TDOC), both of which were late 2019 additions on the recommendation of my favorite CNBC Analyst, Josh Brown, President of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Zoom is a new player in the teleconferencing arena with a better mousetrap and Teledoc is... well... self explanatory. Both of these stocks have been doubles over the past couple months... thanks, Josh.

But I digress...

As I said... yesterday was different... it felt different... it was more mixed. So while I trimmed a couple stocks that were ripping... including for the first time ZM and TDOC... I added to positions in a couple others including BAC and AT&T, the latter of which is a solid Bear Market stock.

Other new things yesterday more indications that we are in a bottoming process... not saying we are at THE bottom, but it feels like the beginning of the end... in a good way. Also heard a term for the first time yesterday... "green shoots". It was uttered by another favorite CNBC analyst, Guy Adami, who has been very negative on the market for a while now... long before the virus had a name. Again, not that Guy is positive now... not that he is calling a bottom... but that the market feels like it's gaining some footing. He added, "The only thing I know for sure is that after the passage of last week we are one week closer to this thing being over."

Futures were limit up overnite... and most of the major foreign markets were up sharply as well.

=================================================================================================

Today ... Markets opened up sharply with the S&P popping over 4% at the open and has continued to rise to up just shy of 7% as of 10:30 EDT.

Today is a very difficult day for those of us who are new to Bear Markets. Do we continue to sell rips? That's the Bear game plan and it especially applies to markets that are trying to find bottoms as it gets very choppy down here. However, but this is also when FOMO, fear of missing out, rears its ugly head.

We shall see...

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Update...

12:30 EDT... S&P is up ~8.5%

Trimmed a couple holdings earlier when market was up ~6.5%, but looked stalled. These were stocks whose total had risen above my pre-set limit before this correction started. These are ones I'd added quite a bit to on way down and much lower that we are now.

Why up? Fed actions... Congressional deal "closer"... Trump happy talk... market technical levels...

Dealers choice of any or all.

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One added note to drive home the note of caution about this being "the bottom"...

Thursday will bring a major test as it will be the first jobs report since layoffs have begun in earnest.

Street estimates of the rise in initial jobless claims have been estimated to rise from 200,000+ in the last report to in the 2 to 2.5 million range in this one.

If it comes to pass, it will be the single greatest rise in history and I'd expect the market to retreat, however...

... if it falls short of that range... even if the actual number is still a very, very big number... the market may well pop on "less bad than expected" news.

 

Such is the way of the markets...

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22 minutes ago, Tour2ma said:

Update...

12:30 EDT... S&P is up ~8.5%

Trimmed a couple holdings earlier when market was up ~6.5%, but looked stalled. These were stocks whose total had risen above my pre-set limit before this correction started. These are ones I'd added quite a bit to on way down and much lower that we are now.

Why up? Fed actions... Congressional deal "closer"... Trump happy talk... market technical levels...

Dealers choice of any or all.

There are two basic types of investors "buy & hold" and traders.  The buy & pray ones are in for the long haul and basically just have to hang in there. They've done well especially in the 2008 to 2020 up to Corona.   

The traders especially the big ones with computerized buy/sell/buy/buy can make a fortune but with risks.  I was a day trader from about 2000 until the 2008 crash and got out too much work !!   Now our buy & hold stuff has done well like IRA mutual funds, 401(k) and some select stocks......I also have dusted off my old Ameritrade stock account.

I've been through about 7 stock crashes in my about 48 years dabbling in the stock market this is now number 8 and the most different of them all.

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I'd add a 3rd type... a hybrid... an investor that trades around positions. That's me... :) and the trading can include hedging as well, although I've done little of that.

I do a little options trading. In fact just bought some VIX puts yesterday.

Anyway...

Chime in anytime, mjp.... keep me honest. If I post anything that seems wrong, or particularly right, call it out.

This thread is kinda turning into a diary for me... and it's helping me keep my discipline. And with 800+ views it seems like folks are at least looking in...

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S&P closed up 9.4%...

 

Reminder to all... for every 10% drop it takes an 11% rise to break even... or at least get within a rounding error of doing so.

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Futures off overnite, but were rising when I turned in based upon late passage of the $2-trillion stimulus.

All markets popped at the open led by the Dow due to the heavy weighting of Boeing which was up 20% on news of an impending bail out, but then...

... markets started to roll over.

Looks to me like a case of "sell the news" syndrome. Often when something good is anticipated the markets begin to build in the news before the event so by the time the event occurs it's fully "priced in" and the market actually sells off as traders take profits generated by the early rise.

If the averages can finish positive today it will be the time since early February that they have finished up 2 days in a row. Seems trivial perhaps, but doing so is important to market sentiment.

 

At 10:37 the S&P is off 0.4%... the Dow is up 0.9%.

 

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Everything was looking rosy this afternoon with all the indices green and the S&P up a respectable 3+%... until the last 20 minutes when about 2/3rds of the gains were given back..

S&P finished up 1.2% for the day. Dow was up more, but the NASDAQ finished slightly negative.

The fall seems to have been due to issues with the Senate Bill passing via unanimous consent. A couple Repubs have issues with possibility that a worker might make a little more not working than he was working thru the bill's finds plus normal unemployment. Bernie has some issue with the change some Repubs want (not sure if it's the same group or another one).

Assuming the Bill does proceed a secondary market concern seems to developing around the gov't's ability to distribute $2trillion rapidly...

Nonetheless we have our 2nd consecutive up day for the market... at least per 2 of 3 indices... Yea? But the VIX also rose as it did yesterday, which is a concerning inconsistency, but may be anticipating tomorrow's initial jobless claims number.

Not sure what the NASDAQ result was about... possibly short-term profit taking.

 

Me? Trimmed a very little bit more of Zoom Video (ZM) and that's it.

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On 3/24/2020 at 1:29 PM, mjp28 said:

There are two basic types of investors "buy & hold" and traders.  The buy & pray ones are in for the long haul and basically just have to hang in there. They've done well especially in the 2008 to 2020 up to Corona.   

The traders especially the big ones with computerized buy/sell/buy/buy can make a fortune but with risks.  I was a day trader from about 2000 until the 2008 crash and got out too much work !!   Now our buy & hold stuff has done well like IRA mutual funds, 401(k) and some select stocks......I also have dusted off my old Ameritrade stock account.

I've been through about 7 stock crashes in my about 48 years dabbling in the stock market this is now number 8 and the most different of them all.

 

Screenshot_20200326-075036_Chrome.jpg

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But what are the amounts, Steve? ;)

 

S&P futures are off ~2% bracing for the Initial claims...

Time for a "Sr's only" grocery run... braising a pork butt today Mexican style... salsa verde...

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2 minutes ago, Tour2ma said:

But what are the amounts, Steve? ;)

 

S&P futures are off ~2% bracing for the Initial claims...

Time for a "Sr's only" grocery run... braising a pork butt today Mexican style... salsa verde...

 

3 minutes ago, Tour2ma said:

But what are the amounts, Steve? ;)

 

S&P futures are off ~2% bracing for the Initial claims...

Time for a "Sr's only" grocery run... braising a pork butt today Mexican style... salsa verde...

I got it for pound beef something-or-other roast marinated and wrapped and sealed are plastic at Sam's Club. Curled it up last night and it was great. At that point I realized it for pounds of beef is more than I probably really want. But what the hell. 

As for the portfolio I don't really micromanage it I trust my guy that set it up. And I have taken a substantial hit. I would imagine I would have taken a hit no matter...

WSS

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Joke on the amounts... looks reasonably balanced on domestic side. Sure it lost, but looks reasonably balanced for bear/bull future so...

 

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Initial Jobless Claims.... 3.28 million.... blew away any week in history, but then workforce is double the size of that in "the Crash" so grain of salt there...

And that's the way the market is reacting.

 

Futures were slightly off this AM, but 5 minuted into the trading day all indices are positive with S&P up 1.8%...

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I for one am concerned about the national debt. Maybe we had to do this stimulus but shame on any politician adding wish list goodies. The entire stimulus should have been soley for coronavirus related issues. We are heavily in debt already. Maybe this is money we need to spend but it is still money from an already maxxed out credit card. As everyone knows running up debt on the credit card never ends well.

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