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NFP Gets Faded
Daily Rap 10-06-2023
Today's nonfarm payroll report was surprisingly strong, with job gains of nearly twice what was expected, and the back months revised up as well. I'm extremely skeptical that this is anywhere near accurate, particularly when you look beneath the surface at the household survey. As Steph Pomboy noted, "Fulltime employment is down a stunning 692K over just the last three months. The last three times this happened? 2001, 2008, and COVID recession (2020)."
The market generally doesn't care about what's really going on anyway, it just reacts to the headline number. However, having said that, today's early action was interesting in that the stock market lost about 1% in no time, but almost as quickly, i.e., within a couple of hours, the indices were almost back...more
Last year's posts for Ask Fleck
Q: Hi Bill,
Correct me if Im wrong. The start of the Bond Market taking away the printing press,2 Major Wars, The U.S Government Basically Bankrupt,And Everything Else that is Going On with the Banks and Commercial Property. Wouldn't one think that Gold would Shine.
But instead Miners are trading at historical lows relative to the price of gold per ounce.
Call me Nuts but I'm adding to my positions This has to be obvious to some of the Big Players out there at some point, Would you agree.
Thank You For All You Do !
Much Appreciated !
Fleck: I agree with you. Americans are just trained to think that they never need to worry about these problems, as we can see by the lack of interest in the GLD ETF.
(posted: 10/13/2023)
Q: Bill...regarding the issue of buying 2-5 year Treasuries, I believe Mr. Skin has been staying short term ("keep on rolling"). Far be it for me to second guess him. Based on the supply/demand imbalance in T-bills (too much supply/not enough demand), longer term rates are increasing but don't compensate for duration risk. Until I get paid for the risk of time, I'll stay short (3-6 months).There will be plenty of time to change to a longer term strategy when a trend develops (or Mr. Skin changes his strategy). Any flaws in that logic?
Fleck: Not really. It all depends on your viewpoint. Going out a couple of years is fine as well if you're worried about rate cuts coming, though I'm not.
(posted: 10/13/2023)
Q: Hello Bill, hope you had a safe trip. Does the large short interest in PCT concern you ? Thanks.
Fleck: Short interest always makes me wonder what they think they know, but in this case we all know what the issues are. We have to see if they can hit their production milestones. Until then, it's best just to watch from the sidelines.
(posted: 10/13/2023)
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