Should you be concerned by the jobs report?

The July jobs report showed nonfarm payrolls grew by 73k, which missed the estimate of 100k. Unfortunately, the news got even worse as you dug into the report. The prior two months saw major negative revisions as June was revised from 147k to just 14k and May was revised from 125k to just 19k. This amounted to a total negative revision of 258k when looking at the two months combined. Another negative was job growth in the month of July was heavily reliant on health care & social assistance as the category added 73.3k jobs in the month. This means that this category essentially carried the report as the total jobs created in the month topped the full headline number. There were some other areas that saw growth with retail trade adding 15,700 jobs, leisure and hospitality adding 5k jobs, and construction adding 2k jobs. Unfortunately, there were more…

Job openings declined in the month of June

The June Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, commonly referred to as the JOLTs report, showed job openings declined to 7.4 million, down 275,000 from the prior month. While this may sound problematic, it is important to remember this is still a historically healthy level for job openings and it comes against a back drop of a historically low unemployment rate. I have said this for many months, but I believe there is even further room for job openings to decline without there being a problem for the labor market. Taking that concept one step further, I would be quite surprised to see growth in job openings from here. The main reason for that is there just aren’t enough people to fill those openings especially since it appears many companies are choosing to retain employees rather than look for new...

GDP came in stronger expected, another good sign for the economy!

While Q2 gross domestic product, also known as GDP, jumped 3% and easily topped the estimate of 2.3%, the numbers were not as strong as the headlines indicate. With the tariffs having a large impact on trade and business inventories, this report is the opposite of Q1 when actual results were much better than the headlines showed. In Q1 companies were likely trying to get ahead of tariffs so they were trying to load up on inventory and import a lot more foreign goods than normal. This led to a 37.9% increase in imports during Q1 which subtracted 4.66% from the headline GDP number. In Q2 we saw a complete reversal as imports fell 30.3% and add…

Should Banks be responsible when their customers get scammed?

It’s a sad thing to see someone in their 60s or 70s get scammed out of their life savings. Unfortunately, there are many online scams now and it appears they just keep growing. According to the FBI, in 2024 online scams totaled $16 billion, which was a 33% increase from 2023. A big question that people have been asking is should banks be the ones that are held responsible when it comes to preventing their customers from making poor investment decisions or losing money in online romance scams? Banks are already trying to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and other types of fraud that is costly for the banks to maintain. Adding another oversight would be another expense for the banks, which could lead to costs elsewhere in the banking system to make up for those...

Financial Planning: The Secondary Benefits of Roth Accounts

While the primary advantage of Roth accounts lies in their tax-free growth and withdrawals in retirement avoiding potentially higher tax rates, there are several powerful secondary benefits worth considering. First, Roth IRAs are not subject to Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), which means retirees can keep their money growing tax-free for life. In contrast, traditional pre-tax retirement accounts force RMDs beginning at age 75, whether the funds are needed or not. These…

Companies Discussed: Hasbro, Inc. (HAS), Chipotle Mexican Gill, Inc. (GMG) & Baker Hughes Company (BKR)