Jobs Growth is Negative | Daily Market Update

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Friday, January 8, 2021

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Jobs Growth Turns Negative

The US economy lost 140,000 jobs in December, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, missing Bloomberg survey estimates of a 50,000 gain. This represents the first monthly loss since the jobs market began its recovery in May 2020. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.7%. Learn more on the US labor market later today in the LPL Research blog.

Daily Insights

Stocks open higher after Thursday’s tech-led rally

  • S&P 500 Index opened modestly higher today despite the jobs shortfall.
  • Nasdaq 100 continues to outperform.
  • European stocks are modestly higher with the United Kingdom (UK) lagging for the second straight day.
  • Asian markets closed strong, with Japan surging.

Stocks favored over bonds in 2021. We continue to favor US equities over those in developed international markets (largely Europe and Japan), but the gap has begun to narrow.

Technical update

Technology stocks bounced back Thursday, leading the Nasdaq to a 2.6% gain and the S&P 500 to a 1.5% gain. Thursday marked the second consecutive day that more than 30% of the S&P 500 traded to a new 12-week high, a signal historically associated with above-average returns over the following 6 and 12 months.

COVID-19 news. The United States reported 275,000 new cases Thursday, up 19.9% from the week prior, as the impact from holiday travel begins to appear in the data (source: Johns Hopkins).

  • The 7-day average of new daily cases rose to a new high at 228,000.
  • Week-over-week new cases in the UK fell for the first time since December 8 (source: COVID Tracking Project).

2020 in 20 Charts

2020 was a historic year in many ways, which made it hard to highlight just a few charts. So in honor of 2020, we picked 20 charts that show how amazing–and devastating—2020 really was. Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick reviews 2020 in 20 charts in this YouTube video.

10 Lessons LPL Research Learned in 2020  

LPL Research reviews its top 10 takeaways from 2020, including the 2020 year-end rally and what the markets are saying about the Georgia runoffs. Listen to this week’s Market Signals podcast, also available on the LPL Research YouTube channel.

 

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