The No Good, Very Bad Week. Economic News, Tariff News, Burner Phones, Mega Millions, and the Quad.
The No Good, Very Bad Week
Or not, depending on how you look at it. Let’s start…
The best news was the employment report: 228,000 new jobs created vs. 140,000 expected and 151,000 the week before. Very good news.
And ADP employment was also above expectations at 155,000 vs. 120,000 expected.
Hourly wages are still keeping up with inflation at 3.8% increase. Not great news, but OK.
Jobless claims came in just under expectations of 228,000. There were 219,000 new claims for unemployment.
Job openings dropped from 7.7 million to 7.6 million.
That was the better news.
And then there is the stock market…
Some stocks finished the week up. There were 47 of those, like Sunrun, Goodyear Tire, GameStop, Dollar General, and Lennar.
The other 811 were down. Ouch.
Uncertainty is a big deal.
Perspective
The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is the primary benchmark for measuring stock market performance, alongside the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The S&P 500 is comprised of the 500 largest companies trading on American stock exchanges. It also contains the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones index.
The S&P peaked at 6147 on February 19 this year. It ended last week at 5074.
That’s down 17.5% in six weeks. That stings. But…
After this past week, both indexes are below what they were one year ago.
The S&P is down 2.5% and the Dow is down 1.5%.
But…
From two years ago, it is up 23%.
From 3 years ago, it is up 13%. Yep, it fell between April 2022 and April 2023.
From 4 years ago, it is up 23%.
And from 5 years ago, it is up 83%. Of course, it was down from the market drop due to covid, so from about March 2020 to now, it’s been on a tear. 83% growth.
Over the last 10 years, the S&P has grown 143%.
Your 401 (k) is a long-term play. Over the last 10 years, you would have made 14.3% annually ON AVERAGE.
Over the last 30 years, you would have had a return of 887%.
It was 514 in April 1995 and 5074 on Friday.
HOWEVER, if you had invested in March of 2000, it would be almost 15 years before you saw any growth from that one investment. But with a 401 (k), you are not investing once; you are investing every time you get a paycheck, so when the market drops, you are buying. When the market goes up, you're buying.
It’s called dollar cost averaging.
The stock market is a long term play.
Tariffs – A brief word
I have said before that you can line up all the economists in the world end to end and you still wouldn’t reach a conclusion. And that’s where we are now.
All countries will be charged a 10% tariff starting last Saturday.
Select countries will also be charged a reciprocal tariff starting this Wednesday.
No one, and I mean no one, knows how this will all play out. We can guess, but we don’t know.
Odds are good that it will cause prices on some goods to go up.
And prices do impact spending.
As Forrest Gump would say “Tariffs are like a box of chocolates. You never know what your going to get.” Actually, he didn’t say that, just in case someone from Paramount is getting this.
Speaking of 30 years ago, that movie came out in 1994. Boomer alert!!
More Tariffs
Will this not end, Russell?
Bear with me…
I was corrected by a good friend on my Report last week. I stated that you had to pay the tariff when the goods come in. He advised me that US Customs will debit your account monthly for what you owe. However, it can be like a gym membership.
This same friend had his goods from China misclassified, and instead of charging $10,000 per container, they charged $100,000 per container. With 12 containers on the water that was $1,200,000 sucked out of the account.
One year later and $50,000 in attorney fees, they got their $1,000,000 back.
Just sharing information. Thanks, William.
On to lighter subjects…
Mega Millions
Mega Millions – originally started as The Big Game in 1996 – is raising its prices.
Just when folks are going to give a second thought about more spending.
Yes, the cost of a Mega Millions lottery ticket will increase from $2 to $5. Jiminy.
Talk about a slap to the person just wanting to unload a couple of singles…
Now you’re dropping a $5 bill for a single ticket. At least before, $4 for two tickets cut your odds in half, from 1 in 302,575,350 to 1 in 151,287,675.
The new $5 game has odds of 1 in 290,472,338. So much more value for the money!!!
Hmmm. I wonder if lottery tickets are represented in the CPI survey…
Burner Numbers
I learned you can get a “Burner Number” for your phone.
Now why would I do that? I’m not being surveilled (unless you have a smartphone) and I’m not a dealer of self-medicating pharmaceuticals.
You get it for spam and anything not related to friends and family.
2FA texts, secondary contacts, such as one-time dates or your in-laws.
Evidently, there is a virtual calling app and there is also Google Voice.
Burner app lets you have up to 10 numbers. That’s a bit much, I think.
At that point, you really are a dealer of something.
Revisiting the Quad
In my September 25, 2022 Report, I mentioned Ilia Malinin, the first person to ever do a quad axle. As an FYI, that is not referring to a truck.
It is the quadruple axel jump in figure skating.
It’s like breaking the sound barrier or the four-minute mile.
Well, Mr. Malinin is still the only human that can do the quad axel in competition. And he just won the world figure skating championship two weeks ago in Boston. I am also pleased to say he represents Team USA.
You can expect to see him in the 2026 Winter Olympic games in Italy in 10 months. Consider this your Olympic wake-up call.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t say this enough. Work through the noise and focus on the things that you can change or mitigate. Others will not and it will be an opportunity to secure new business because they will be distracted and you won’t. It happens every time.
