For Investors Only -- Climbing The Wall Of Worry

"Everyone" is looking forward to a great jobs report today (posted at 7:26, April 4, 2014). Regardless of the numbers, it is the "spin" I look forward to. ADP estimates 191,000 new jobs added (estimate published two days ago). For newbies, anything below 200,000 is a disappointment at this point in an economic recovery, though 190,000 would be a bit more than the recent 12-month average.

Ah, here it is, the spin. Reuters headline: US maintains solid job growth as winter fades. LOL. By any reasonable measure, this was a disappointment. The ADP predicted this number, but a Bloomberg survey suggested 206,000. Anything below 200,000 is a disappointment, and it's a huge disappointment at this point in a six-year recovery. The worse thing a government can do in a recession is institute a tax increase, and ObamaCare was one of the biggest tax increases -- and a new tax, at that -- foisted on the unassuming American public.  

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This is a great article. After reading Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit, this "conflict" between the Fed and the Obama administration makes all kinds of sense. 

Political gridlock is slowing U.S. economic growth, impacting the confidence and budgets of businesses across the country, a top Fed official said here on Friday.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher took a swipe at U.S. politicians and their inability to cooperate, and accused them of impeding jobs growth.

In a question and answer session following a speech he gave at the Asia Society on forward guidance, Fisher referred to "our feckless Congress and poor government leadership" needing to get their act together.

It's been my impression that the Fed has been fighting the Obama administration very step of the way trying to move this economy along. 

I don't know if Fisher will address this, but it's generally agreed that that the worst thing a government can do during a depression/recession is raise taxes. ObamaCare, not only a tax, but easily one of the biggest taxes ever foisted on the Americans in one fell swoop.

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Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or anything you think you may have read here. This site is for my own personal use but if you stumble upon it, feel free to read it at your leisure. 

Wow: despite new S&P 500 records for the past several days, futures are up again today. And WTI is up almost a buck; again, over $100. The kind of market I like, climbing the wall of worry. 

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An Inconvenient Truth

When these stories start to show up in mainstream media, one knows the tide has begun to turn. Finally, some unemotional scientific discussion.

Yahoo!Finance is reporting:

A Sad Truth: there is ample evidence that suggests private scientists and public servants have been manipulating the basic raw data that most everyone relies on to calculate climate change. (This story has great timing as the IPCC–International Panel on Climate Change–just released Part 5 of their most recent major assessment on climate science (even they can’t bring themselves to call it Global Warming anymore).)

There are some investment trends that come out of this new Truth, and some of it is as simple as get long snowmobile makers and get short lawn mowers. One trend is that Global Cooling should bring more seasonality in oil and gas prices, making energy ETF and commodity traders happy.

All of this is part of a new ground-breaking study completed by Unit Economics, an investment think-tank from Boston. They are a non-partisan group with no axe to grind on this issue; like me, they are here to make money for their clients. Show us a trend and we’ll figure out how to profit from it.

In Part I, you’ll understand the big swings in temperature the earth has experienced in the last million years, and the last thousand years, and the last 50 years. In Part II I’ll explain how sunspot activity directly correlates to ALL these temperature changes. And I’ll give you a hot, near-term investment trend to capitalize on this cool idea.

I've always maintained that there are multiple "arenas" on any issue. With both global warming and ObamaCare there are political arenas, scientific arenas, and investing arenas, to just name a few. I've pretty much moved on from the political arenas -- my points have been made -- and have moved on to investing arenas. If today, the president, by executive order, banned all gasoline engines, I would probably recommend selling all GM stock, for example. I wouldn't agree wit his politics, but I wouldn't purposely lose money trying to make a point. [By the way, Gartner said the biggest lesson he has learned in 40 years of investing: don't fight the Fed. That was posted this past week over at CNBC.]