The big news today is the jobs report came out about as expected. Stocks liked the news and climbed again.
The unemployment rate gained 0.1% to 4.2%. However, the civilian labor force fell 193,000 to 168,386,000. The labor participation rate fell 0.1% to 62.5%.
In the last year, nonfarm payrolls are up by 2.3 million while employment is down by 725,000 and full-time employment is down by over 1.3 million.
The biggest gains were in health care services and government which were needed to handle immigration.
These numbers make little sense of course. But these are the numbers we have and the low number is what matters to the algorithms. What should matter to you is that the bottom for unemployment is in and you can expect unemployment to head higher for the remainder of this cycle.
TicTok Gone
The second bit of market-driving news was that an appeals court upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest its popular short video app TikTok by early next year or get banned.
TikTok is popular and used by 170 million Americans but the concern is that China is using the app to collect data and foment revolution – or at least degrade the quality of American children.
The law was passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden. It gives the U.S. government powers to ban foreign-owned apps. TikTok and ByteDance argued that the law is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment.
Meta Moons
Meta Platforms, one of the MAG7 stocks jumped 3% and hit an all-time high of $629.79. This bad news for TikTok is great news for Meta’s social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.
Everything has been coming up Zuckerberg lately. In October of 2022, Meta was trading for just $90 after the company abandoned its failed meta-verse project. If you bought at the lows you would be sitting on a 598%. The contrarians win again – amazing.
I bought Meta after a chart study revealed a breakout a few weeks ago. The company has a PE of 29 which is below the average MAG7 stocks of 35. Google has the most value with a PE of 23 but they are all seemingly taking turns driving the major markets higher.
MAG7
The leveraged 5x MAG7 which I recommended on November 26 in this space is up a whopping 35% since then. Put a 20% trailing stop-loss on it and ride the euphoria.
NASDAQ Running
Here is a ten-year chart of the NASDAQ. Each candlestick represents a month.
There is no question that it is over-bought according to the MACD, but the trend is up and there is no top signal yet. If you see a doji cross like we got at the end of 2021 you should sell fast.
Fed Cuts
Right now stocks are at an all-time high, home prices are at an all-time high, Bitcoin is near an all-time high and the national debt is at a record. Unemployment is just off of all-time lows and inflation has been above 3% for 42 straight months.
With this backdrop, the Fed is going to cut rates in two weeks.
Why? The only answer is that the Fed wants to ramp up inflation because it knows that the government can’t pay down the debt and the only way to avoid a debt crisis is to create an inflation crisis. If the dollar is worth less then the national debt decreases.
This is what they are calling a meltdown. It will seem like a good thing at first but your purchasing power will decline. To protect yourself you must own assets: houses, stocks, gold, silver, and bitcoin.
All the best,
Christian DeHaemer
Outsider Club
MAG7: https://www.outsiderclub.com/leveraged-etfs-are-all-the-rage/
Market like 1996, not 1999: https://www.outsiderclub.com/party-like-it-is-1996/
Bought and sold: https://www.outsiderclub.com/they-own-the-us-economy/
