Smart Investing with Brent & Chase Wilsey
Business:Investing
March Jobs Report
I must say, I was very surprised by the strength in the March Jobs Report. Nonfarm payrolls increased 303,000 in the month, which easily topped the estimate of 200,000. Unlike prior reports, there wasn’t a major change to the previous months as February saw a negative revision of just 5,000 and January’s revision brought the total up by 27,000. There were many positives in the report considering the unemployment rate ticked lower to 3.8%, the labor force participation rate actually increased 0.2 percentage points to 62.7%, and average hourly earnings increased 4.1% which was lower than last month’s reading of 4.3%. Areas of strength in the economy included health care and social assistance (+81,300), government (+71,000), leisure and hospitality (+49,000), and construction (+39,000). According the BLS, the leisure and hospitality sector is finally now back to its pre-pandemic level. If the economy and labor market continue to remain resilient, I do worry we may not see those three interest rate cuts we have been expecting during the remainder of the year.
JOLTs
In the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) it showed there were 8.8 million job openings in February, which pretty much matched expectations and last month’s reading. The job market has continued to remain resilient and I do believe that it will need to enter a Goldilocks period where it is not too hot or too cold. Too many job openings may deter the Fed from considering rate cuts and obviously we do not want a weak labor market as that would be bad for the economy.
Stock Market
The stock market has gotten off to a strong start and in the first quarter the S&P 500 was up 10.2%, which marked the best first quarter performance since 2019. The Dow and Nasdaq also had good quarters as they were respectively up 5.6% and 9.1% in Q1. In a recent study, it was pointed that of the 16 times the S&P 500 rose 8% or more in the first quarter from 1950 through 2023, only once (1987) did the index lose ground the rest of the year. In the remaining years, the index gained an average of 9.7% over the next three quarters. In 10 of the 15 years the first quarter’s gains were higher than those seen over the remainder of the year. While this is bullish for the remainder of the year, I do worry about the concentration of the market. With Nvidia’s strong start and large market cap it accounted for close to half of the entire gain for the index. I don’t believe this will be able to continue, but I am optimistic that the rally could continue to broaden which would be beneficial to other stocks.
Office Rents
Across the country office rents are holding firm and they are higher now than they were back in the fourth quarter of 2019. The average US office rent has an asking price of $35.24 per square foot. This is an increase from $34.92 per square foot in 2019. It is not a high increase, but compared to a lot of the negativity that the media is spreading, it shows office rents as a whole are still doing OK. I would recommend for investors looking into office real estate to really do their due diligence to make sure they are not buying or investing in a declining property.
Stocks Discussed: Visa (V), Tesla (TSLA), Disney (DIS) and McCormack (MKC)
March 4, 2023 | Economic News, Apartment Rent, Capital Gains Taxes, Crypto Market and Alternative Investments in Retirement Accounts
February 25, 2023 | Home Sales, Credit Card Fee’s, Inflation Decreasing & Short vs. Long Term Thinking
February 18, 2023 | ChatGPT, Retail Sales, Option Contracts and 2023 Inflation
February 11, 2023 | Short-Term Rentals, Young Investors, Super Bowl Betting and When to File your Taxes
February 4, 2023 | Labor Market, Jobs Report, Tailored Shareholder Reports, Super Bowl Streaming & Tax Planning with the new RMD Age
January 28, 2023 | Personal Consumption Expenditures, Tesla’s Reported Earnings, Home Price Affordability, Debt Ceiling, Layoffs and Over-Hiring, Stock-Based Compensation, Federal Reserve...
January 21, 2023 | Inflation, Consumer Spending, Debt Ceiling, Costco Buyback Program & Life Insurance Review
January 14, 2023 | Consumer Price Index (CPI), Santa Claus Rally, Stocks, NFL, 529 to Roth Rollover
January 7, 2023 | Job Market, Supply Management (ISM), Tech Employees, Secure Act 2.0, The economy, Interest Rates, Real Estate, Bitcoin, Stocks & Bonds
Back to Financial Basics: Investing Education (Pre Recorded)
December 17, 2022 | Inflation, The Fed Report, Job Market & Sole proprietor or S-Corp pt. 2
December 10, 2022 | Producer Price Index (PPI), Freight Costs, Big Tech Companies, Plant-Based Meat, and Sole Proprietor or S-Corp
December 3, 2022 | Jobs, Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), National Retail Federation (NRF) & The SEC
November 19, 2022 | Consumer Price Index, Inflation, Home Sales, S&P 500 Companies, Costco vs. Sam’s Club & Income Related Monthly Adjusted Amount (IRMAA)
November 12, 2022 | CPI Report, Job Market, CBDC’s (Central Bank Digital Currency) & Cryptocurrency Balance Sheets
November 5, 2022 | Payroll Employment, September JOLTs, Facebook (META), Microsoft Workers & Traditional and Roth IRA Income Limits
October 29, 2022 | Portfolio Splits, Gross Domestic Product Report,10-Year Treasury, Oil Companies, How spouse age difference affects social security
October 22, 2022 | Dollar Strength, Earning Season, Tax Adjustment, Home Sales & Series I Bonds
October 15, 2022 | Inflation, Strong Dollar, Crypto, Cars, Oil, Inflation, Fossil Fuels, Nike, Businesses, Used Cars, Lumber Prices, & Meme Stocks
October 1, 2022 Global Economy, Costco, Market, Income Increase, Luxury Homes, Apple, Oil, Electric Vehicles, & September
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