Guest Host Tonight

This is Brian Bolan filling in for the Ultimate Editor, Jim Giaquinto.  Jim has a tendency to take a vacation day each month and today was it… so I drew the lucky straw and get to tell the Ultimate subscribers what happened today. 

The big news was that the jobs number was below expectations, but not really below more like way, way below.  Somehow analysts were expecting we would show one million new jobs last month… but when only 266K were actually created buyers decided that was excellent news.

Let’s think about that for a minute, why was the market up and making new highs when the jobs number was such a huge miss?  Well the simple answer is that it means the recovery is going to take a lot longer than we expected and that more or less cements the idea that rates are going to stay very low.

Janet Yellen made the statement today that said full employment is expected to be reached next year.  That is a long way away and the lack of detail on that statement means we will have to include December in any plans for reaching full employment.  The huge miss might have something to do with the unemployment extensions, so when those expire in September we will probably have a better chance of everything going back to normal.

More Data

The unemployment rate was expected to fall to 5.8% from the previous reading of 6%.  Instead, we saw the rate move higher to 6.1%.

Inventories came in at 1.3% where 1.4% was expected and that number is an increase from the 1% prior reading.

Consumer credit came in at $25.8B and that was well above the $20B estimate.  That number did decrease a little from last months $26.2B reading.  The idea here is that people are not paying down debt as much as was expected and that is directly related to the lack of job creation.

Elon Musk

You might have heard that the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX is slated to be the host of Saturday Night Live tomorrow.  I thought the move would bring a lot of investors into the stock that can be found in Tech Innovators.  That wasn’t the case and what we did see was a ramp in Dogecoin.

I cannot make an argument for owning Dogecoin as I don’t know much about it but from what I understand, there really isn’t anything behind it.  That said, investors of the crypto coin are expecting the a sketch or something from Musk on the show.  I saw the coin up 13% today and it has been ramping all week. 

I am going to be watching the show for the first time in years, if not decades… and I have some high expectations.  The show was a mainstay for the first half of my life, but then stopped being funny.  Maybe it is funny now, but I doubt it.  I would have seen some clips or links or something either on Twitter or Instagram or some other social media app.

Portfolios

Tracey Ryniec runs the Insider Trader service and she looks for stocks that have a strong Zacks Rank and show insider buying.  Following a big move lower in the price of MAXR, Tracey added it to the portfolio today.  She noted that the CEO and CFO have both bought the recent plunge and there are few other things that can inspire as much confidence as something like that.  I have held MAXR in the Stocks Under $10 portfolio for some time now, so I love to see this development.

Tracey also added US Silica Holding (SLCA) and Weyerhaeuser (WY) today.  Be sure to read her update for more on why those two names were added.

To offset some of the buying, there were four names dropped from the service and two of them posted strong gains.  Avis Budget Group (CAR) was sold after a little more than two months in the portfolio and that trade resulted in a 35% gain.  Veritiv Corporation (VRTV) was a bigger holding in the portfolio and in a little less than a month and a half Tracey was able to lead subscribers to a gain of 15% in the name.

As the editor of Value Investor, Tracey is tasked with finding stocks with a great value proposition and a strong Zacks Rank as well.  From time to time Tracey harvests some big wins and that happened today.  I see she booked gains of 56% of Flagstar Bancorp (FBC) and 40% for Eli Lilly (LLY).  Be sure to read her weekly write up for this very popular investor service.

David Bartosiak is the editor of Surprise Trader which looks for stocks that are set to report and have seen very recent earnings estimate increases.  The idea is that an analyst has to be fairly confident a beat is coming when numbers are increased just before an earnings announcement.  David added Energizer (ENR) to the portfolio today in anticipation of a beat when the company reports next week.  Be sure to check out his write up to get all the details.

Jim returns to the helm of this service next week.

Have a great weekend,

Brian

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