Laboring away While inflation is running rampant and geopolitical tensions are at explosive levels, literally, the actual consumer in the US seems to still be doing pretty ok as indicated by the labor market. New jobless claims last week came in at a measly 187k, which is the lowest level we’ve seen in 52.5 years. That number in the peak of COVID was over 6m, so we’ve clearly come a long way in recovering those jobs lost during the pandemic. Moral of the story: Companies are still fairly desperate for workers and there are 11.3m job openings in the US – that’s 1.8 jobs per unemployed person, which is a…

It’s getting worse This was another week of markets reacting daily to issues surfacing because of the Ukraine/Russia conflict – notably, commodities prices (oil, nickel) went bananas this week. One of the more notable economic data points in the middle of all this was the February Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading that showed inflation accelerating in February to 7.9% on an annual basis, the highest since January 1982. Not surprisingly, gas, groceries, and housing were the main drivers of the elevated inflation print. Unfortunately, wages haven’t kept up, falling 2.6% over the past year when adjusted for inflation. Moral of the story: This CPI report wasn’t really a surprise for investors…

Russia situation Y’all. This week was a lot. Stocks were on a total roller-coaster ride as investors tried to digest updates of the Russia-Ukraine situation. The worst came with reports of an attack and then the Russian siege of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine (which btw happens to be the literal LARGEST IN EUROPE). You add nuclear into warfare and obviously people become v unsettled. There was a push and pull across the week as commodity prices got pushed higher, interest rates dropped, and stocks fell. Moral of the story: Historically, periods of conflict like this have proven to be great times to buy investments as markets typically overreact. It’s been…