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All 3 stock indexes record high opening. Consumer confidence 20 year high. Enormous USMCA trade deal finally passed by US Congress after the House sat on it f

• puranjay 7y ago
  In my country, the stock market is at an all time high, even though gdp growth is at a 13 year low and unemployment is the highest in 40+ years. Stock markets often don't reflect the actual state of the economy
  • aaronblohowiak 7y ago
    P/Es being so high reflects the long-term effects of low interest rates.
• kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
  >Enormous USMCA trade deal finally passed by US Congress after the House sat on it for a year. The House didn't sit on it. It has been undergoing the normal process. USMCA is replacing NAFTA. NAFTA took six years to negotiate and ratify. So far, USMCA has taken about two. The final negotiations weren't even finished until mid-December. Mexico ratified the final version of USMCA last month after negotiations had ended, and Canada has yet to vote on it. If anyone has been telling you that the House has been holding things up, they are either wrong or deliberately lying to you.
• sparkling 7y ago
  MAGA!
• metalliqaz 7y ago
  So are you saying that the drop is US job openings isn't newsworthy on it's own?
• 12xo 7y ago
  And the largest deficit in history... Who is going to pay for the debt fueled growth? Hint: Its not the people benefiting most from the markets... The US economy is as stable as Trump and as factually real as his skin tone...
  • Mikeb85 7y ago
    Look at interest rates. The cost of borrowing matters more than the amount borrowed.
    • 12xo 7y ago
      Wow... That's an interesting assertion and frankly, crazy. Care to explain? Fundamentally there is no difference is the debt at .01% or 15%, if one cannot make the payment, they are in trouble. If the holder of the debt cannot collect, they're in trouble.
      • daxorid 7y ago
        The Unites States will always pay the coupon. QE4 is currently supporting our record issuance in the repo market - you know, the support that was supposed to be unwound by now, but has in fact grown in position since the beginning of the year. We will monetize our debt forever, just like Japan, until there are currency consequences. The MMT people argue there will never be said currency consequences. We shall see.
        • Mikeb85 7y ago
          The currency consequences come in the form of inflation. So it's already happened. But if you mean real, paradigm altering consequences like what's happened to places like Zimbabwe or even Argentina, no, it'll never happen as long as demand for their products (and currencies) remains high.
      • mrosett 7y ago
        Not that I entirely agree with the parent, but as you said: > if one cannot make the payment, they are in trouble. That's a function of cost of borrowing, not the amount borrowed.
• starpilot 7y ago
  Market is overpriced, equities vs gdp. Money is flowing into indexes, reducing price discovery and liquidity. Half of stocks in s&p500 have less $150m trade volume. Investors are over allocated to stocks. This is all following the yield curve uninverting. Bridgewater meanwhile is betting big on gold. Disclosure: I've reduced my equity holdings in half with plans to go further.
  • frockington1 7y ago
    Hopefully you didn't miss out on this weeks earnings season! Been a great week for equities
• johnward 7y ago
  They don't give an opinion on if this is negative or positive.
  • wpride 7y ago
    What news they choose to make News is an opinion.
    • douglasisshiny 7y ago
      So they shouldn't report news that is slightly downbeat? Even though the JOLTS report is reported... monthly?
    • kaesar14 7y ago
      How are they making this news? News is simply news - there are no opinions here. Click on the business section of Reuters, this isn't even a headline.
    • icandoit 7y ago
      They chase demand. Ideas exist in a market place. I wouldn't expect "Everything is great, No problems here, Weekly" to sell many copies.
    • hyperpape 7y ago
      Jobs reports are always covered by the major news outlets. I’ve literally been reading them for decades. Doesn’t matter who the president is.
    • AznHisoka 7y ago
      Job openings has been reported by the government every month for a long time. This isn’t obscure, cherry picked news.
• endorphone 7y ago
  In 2000, the DOW had 4 record closes. Then the recession hit. In 2007 the DOW had 34 record closes. Then the housing crisis hit. In modern times the stock market has acted as a lagging indicator, as does consumer confidence (obviously). Both are generally sky high before things turn dark. Liquidity means that the realistic future concern is a very small window. If, on the other hand, each share transfer had a non-transfer limitation for say five years, the market would be way more predictive. Job openings, on the other hand, tend to be a leading indicator. So...yeah. As an aside, USMCA that congress "sat on" is a tiny reworking on the long in place NAFTA. Most economic analyses show it having an absolutely negligible effect on the US economy. Pretty weird to highlight that. Or that's just an anti-Trump conspiracy? "Reuters just salivating over finding something they can spin as negative about the current economy." I remember a couple of weeks ago it was something about Bloomberg trying to downplay Trump's great economic accomplishment (which is pushing towards a $1.3T deficit -- who knew Republicans loved deficits so much? -- with record low interest rates AND quantitative easing, all while lambasting the fed, setting up conditions for a devastating recession) That there is a pretty loud pro-Trump contingent on HN has always baffled me. To be uncharitable, I cannot comprehend how otherwise intelligent people can be so completely stupid. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21968066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21968066 - that was the story 11 days ago about nine states facing economic contractions. Unsurprisingly the top posts were that it's Fake News and some sort of anti-Trump conspiracy.
• aerovistae 7y ago
  Except, of course, as people are finally starting to notice and point out, high stocks only benefit the top 10% of society, and are a useless indicator for the vast majority, who have little to no holdings.
  • rusttoxic 7y ago
    Ummm what are pension funds?
    • jayd16 7y ago
      Indeed, "what are pension funds"? I don't have a pension. No one I know personally has a pensions. The younger or non-tech people I know have little to none in their 401k.
      • dman 7y ago
        No one in tech has a pension.
        • ghaff 7y ago
          That is mostly true but not categorically so. I'm in tech and have one, albeit from an older company that's no longer around.
        • gspr 7y ago
          ITT: Americans, Americans everywhere.
        • NotSammyHagar 7y ago
          Some people I know who are programmers for a defense department company have pensions, 401ks, and bonuses.
      • animalgonzales 7y ago
        this
      • 7y ago
• jayd16 7y ago
  >the House sat on it for a year. You mean worked on. Its not like it was ignored.
• mooreds 7y ago
  Here's a little more sober analysis: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/01/bls-job-openings-fell-to-68-million-in.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/01/bls-job-openings-... By someone who has been following the jolts numbers for years.
  • eclipxe 7y ago
    Calculated Risk has been "sky is falling" for many years. Someone taking their advice over the last 12 years would be much worse off than doing the opposite of what they encourage.
    • mooreds 7y ago
      Interesting. I haven't followed as closely since left the real estate business but thought he was always pretty measured. And data driven. See https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2019/05/still-not-on-recession-watch.html https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2019/05/still-not-on-rece... For an example.
    • nate_meurer 7y ago
      You must be thinking of a different blog. For the past decade, Bill has steadfastly maintained that we're not headed into a recession any time soon.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
• FilterSweep 7y ago
  because the fed just pumped $2 trillion into the economy.
• lame-robot-hoax 7y ago
  Good god, is this supposed to be ironic? Imagine trying to paint Reuters as biased. Next thing you’ll be telling me that the Associated Press is biased as well. And really? USMCA? You mean NAFTA 2.0? Imagine acting like “passing” USMCA has any meaning. It’s just NAFTA. Tell me when we pass the TPP. Oh wait, we messed up and now that ship has sailed without us. This is news whether you like it or not. Sorry, there is no “spin” here. Reuters reports news. They report the stock market being up, they report yield curve inversions, they report it all. There’s no hidden agenda, get over it.
  • akvadrako 7y ago
    Most news organizations are biased one way or another. About 90% of reporters are left of center, that probably also applies to Reuters. They do keep the spin to a minimum, I’ll give them that.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • outside1234 7y ago
      What amazes me is how easy it is for people to be radicalized by watching a single news source. My parents have literally been radicalized from normal moderate folks to "crazy conspiracy people" by watching Fox News and, I suspect, this is a broadly true statement amongst a very large swath of the elderly population.
      • 12xo 7y ago
        Older Americans come from a time when the Man on the TV or Radio spoke the truth, with honor and integrity and did so citing facts and experts. They still hold onto this ethos and therefore believe - like they believe a preacher, that the words and opinions are real and factual and worthy of regard... This is why FOXNews and talk radio skews so heavily to people over 60 and is also why its so effective.
        • 7y ago
• degobah 7y ago
  So what you're saying is that when a reporter noticed that the monthly job openings number hit a 4 year low, the Reuters service should not have released a short article stating that fact, otherwise they're "salivating over finding something they can spin as negative about the current economy." Sounds like you're biased in your media assessment.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• deevolution 7y ago
  stock indexes aren't necessarily a great indicator of how well PEOPLE are doing. The stock market has mostly rallied due to massive stock buybacks and the FED which means that companies are choosing to buy stocks rather than make investments in actual R&D, employment, their workers, innovation, and their future. the 99% aren't seeing any benefits from ATH stock indexes.
• ChrisLomont 7y ago
  >Consumer confidence 20 year high. It's not even at a 1-year high [1,2,3]. Reuters also reported on consumer confidence, stock index prices, and the USMCA, so maybe they're only reporting the news. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-confidence https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-confiden... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/consumer-sentiment-index-tk-to-tk-in-january-2020-01-17 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/consumer-sentiment-index-t... [3] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4315169-weekly-economic-release-summary-what-consumer-confidence-is-saying-economy-in-2020 https://seekingalpha.com/article/4315169-weekly-economic-rel...
• melling 7y ago
  You sound like you might be suffering from a slightly religious view of politics. I’d recommend just setting all that aside and try looking at all the data. Consumer confidence is often pretty high before a sudden crash, for example. It doesn’t mean a whole lot. Using selection bias (only looking at the good things that confirm your beliefs) is a bad formula. Sooner or later we’ll have recession. It may or may not be the fault of whichever administration is in office. Jimmy Carter, for example, took a lot of heat for the economy. The high interest rates from the Fed slowed everything but it eventually fixed the economy. Reagan got all the credit.
  • briandear 7y ago
    Giving Jimmy Carter credit for the boom in the 1980s is a bit of a stretch. Using that logic, George HW Bush should be credited with the boom during the Clinton years.
    • melling 7y ago
      It was all about the Fed. George Bush lost because of Fed decisions. The economy went into a brief recession. Bush was extremely popular after the first Iraq War. Unfortunately, rates went up... Paul Volcker was appointed by Carter. He really cranked up rates: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/2019/12/09/c744d596-1468-11e1-9048-1f5352187eed_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/2019/12/09/c...
• deevolution 7y ago
  interestingly, If you compare NASDAQ stock index to Bitcoin, it is near record lows and trending toward making new record lows. https://www.tradingview.com/chart/aydXWl0h/ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/aydXWl0h/
• take_a_breath 7y ago
  Aren't you just doing the opposite? There are lots of data points that point to economic weakness. Ignoring those is just as silly as people ignoring the low unemployment rate and high consumer confidence and saying everything is bad. Among actual signs of weakness: low GDP growth, three rate cuts in 2019, an annual deficit higher than annual GDP growth, an S&P 500 earnings recession [1], a manufacturing recession [2], corporate debt at a record 47% of economy [3]. Even the fact that companies are using cash to buy-back stock instead of investing in growth shows that they don't believe there is enough economic demand to grow EPS through business expansion. Instead they re-purchase stock to reduce the denominator [4]. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sp-500-is-in-its-first-earnings-recession-in-three-years-2019-09-18 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sp-500-is-in-its-first... [2] https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-09/despite-trump-vow-manufacturing-in-recession https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-09/despite-tr... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/corporate-debt-nears-a-record-10-trillion-and-borrowing-binge-poses-new-risks/2019/11/29/1f86ba3e-114b-11ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/corporate-de... [4] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-buybacks-outlook-estimated-record-amid-warren-sanders-political-criticism-2019-7-1028325693 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-buybac...