Are You READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?
-Hank Williams Jr.
Welcome back to the Rambling Mind Newsletter. This is your Market Update.
Gonna be a short one this week. Been doing a lot of traveling for work due to the storm that blew through Georgia. Hope y'all have an awesome labor day and eat lots of barbecue.
Markets
August brought the heat but not in favorable terms. The stock market saw its second decline this year. But it could be worse. The last few days of the month, the market had a significant rally to cut into those losses. You can thank Nvidia for that rally.
YEAR-TO-DATE RESULT
This newsletter is 1,293 words a 6-min read
Tale of the Tape
Economy
I once heard someone say, "The only happy day when you own a boat is the day you buy it and the day you sell it."
Well someone needs to tell that to the 800,000 new Americans that purchased a boat between 2020 and 2021.
🔍Details: According to the National Maritime Manufacturers Association, there was a 35% increase in Recreational Boating activity from 2018 to 2023. Economic Activity grew from $170 Billion in 2018 to $230 Billion in 2023. Per Axios:
Marine industry-related jobs grew from 691,000 to 812,000 during that period, a 17.5% jump.
Sales of powerboats, sailboats, and personal watercraft peaked in 2020 at 318,654 units, totaling $50.3 billion.
Sales cooled slightly in 2021, to 305,734 units but that's partly due to supply chain issues, which constrained inventory, Bradley notes.
Last year, the industry sold just over 261,000 units still strong by historical standards, and more than 1 million pre-owned boats.
Takeaway: Although all surveys and reports show people feeling down on the economy. Reality is saying otherwise. You don't buy a boat unless you feel pretty good about the financial picture of the future. People may believe everyone else is in rough shape but they feel pretty good about their own financial lives right now. This is why we never go by what people say but rather how they spend their money.
Jerome Powell and the Fed are getting exactly what they want from the labor market. It continues to cool off.
🔍Details: According to the nonfarm payrolls released on Friday, the economy added only 187,000 jobs in August.
This is the lowest number of job additions since 2021 when the labor boom began
Unemployment rose from 3.5% to 3.8% due to more people joining the job market.
736,000 people were looking for jobs. The highest number since January.
Unfortunately, wage growth has completely stalled.
Growing only 0.2% month over month.
The lowest since February of 2022.
Also, job gains in July and June were revised down by 11,000 jobs.
💬Words of Smart People: Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, "The labor market has hit a sustainable, cruising altitude. The rate of jobs growth is high enough to continue to create opportunity for workers to join the labor force, but low enough to not cause a resurgence in inflation."
Takeaway: As people's savings have run out, there are more people entering back into the labor market to look for work. This helps the Fed on its war path against inflation. The Fed has focused heavily on the labor market as the driver for inflation (which in my opinion is BS) blaming wage gains for driving up prices. With wage gain completely disappearing due to employers taking back control, it is expected that inflation growth to stop.
My Takeaway: The Fed won't raise interest rates this month. Everything they want to happen is happening. As much as the Fed talks about inflation hurting the bottom end of the income scale, continued increases to interest rates benefit those on the top end. High interest only aid those who already have assets. High interest makes it hard for those without to gain assets due to higher borrowing costs.
Stats of the Week
This is the estimated number of people that traveled over the Labor Day weekend. It's an 11% increase from last year per TSA. International travel also increased by 44% from last year.
Again, people may say they feel the economy is in a bad place. But people still spending that money.
The amount of donations raised from checkout counters. This is an increase of 24% from 2020. Stores like Stop & Shop bring in over $1 million every month in donations.
However, much like with tipping. Americans are getting tired of being asked to pay more than they asked for. According to a survey from Accelerist, 59% of consumers said they donated to a charity at the checkout counter. This is an 80% decline from 2021.
Takeaway: Do not take the generosity of people for granted. Ask too much and they revolt HARD!
A new Biden administration rule would raise the requirement to pay salaried workers overtime from $35,568 to $55,068. This was a rule that was previously tried under the Obama administration but got shut down in the courts. After facing heavy opposition from businesses and Republican lawmakers. The largest industries that face cost increases are retail, food, hospitality, and manufacturing.
Looking Ahead
Ain’t much happening this week.
Sports I Love
College Football Kickoff
We know Fall is around the corner not because the weather changes but because I can smell barbecue in the air. I can see college flags on the highways. And every conversation I have at work begins with:
"Did you see the game this weekend?"
"Can Georgia go for a Threepeat?"
"Wanna join the group's fantasy league?"
The only game that most people cared about this week was Colorado vs TCU. If you are wondering why anyone cares about a random Christian school in Texas and a school in the mountains playing each other on the same week Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and LSU are playing. It is because of one man named Deion Sanders aka PRIME.
He is one of the greatest NFL Players of all time. He recently became the Head Coach of the Colorado Buffalos after about 3 years coaching an HBCU (Historically Black College and University). It was a massive deal when he went to an HBCU because most people do not make that move. He brought a lot of notoriety to the program he coached and to HBCU sports in general. There was a lot of fanfare to him taking the job in Colorado. All eyes were on him for this first game.
Well, the game did not disappoint at all. Colorado went 1-11 last year. TCU was in the National Championship Final last year. A massive disparity between the two teams. It was a back-and-forth game the entire time and Colorado came out victorious.
I normally do not care too much about college football but this year expect lots of updates. I want to follow the story of Prime and see how the season plays out for him. Also, I will bring updates to my usual teams Alabama, Auburn, and UAB (who all won their first games handily).
Man U IS A THORN IN MY SIDE
I just ... I just...
What can I even say? Why do I do this to myself?
Every week, I start off having no hope but then I watch the team play. I get excited that maybe they finally figured something out because they always start off so well. But as always they just crash and burn.
This week they made me believe that we could actually tie with Arsenal (the second-best team in the premiership by a wide margin to Man City). Then with less than 2 minutes to go, they fell asleep and gave the game away.
LIKE JUST .... I have no words.