From the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development:
NJ’s Job Gains Continue with Slight Uptick in December
New Jersey’s labor market grew slightly in December, adding 1,400 nonfarm jobs to a seasonally adjusted level of 4,265,700, according to preliminary estimates produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Private sector employment rose by 100 jobs for the month, continuing a streak of 32 consecutive months of growth starting in May 2020. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.4 percent.
November employment estimates were revised upward by 6,400, for an adjusted gain of 18,100 jobs between October and November. The unemployment rate remained unchanged, at 3.4 percent.
In December, four out of nine major private industry sectors recorded job growth. They were education and health services (+4,400), trade, transportation, and utilities (+2,200), other services (+500), and information (+100). Sectors that recorded a loss for the month were construction (-3,400), professional and business services (-2,500), manufacturing (-500), financial activities (-400), and leisure and hospitality (-300). Month-over-month, the state’s public sector increased by 1,300 jobs.
For all of 2022, preliminary estimates show job growth was broad-based, with all but one of the nine major private industry sectors recording job gains. The sectors that added jobs for the year were trade, transportation, and utilities (+38,700), education and health services (+38,200), leisure and hospitality (+37,600), other services (+15,600), professional and business services (+13,000), financial activities (+4,200), manufacturing (+2,400), and information (+300). Construction (-8,900) was the only sector to record a loss. Year-over-year, the state’s public sector added 7,800 jobs.
first
From the Fed:
Beige Book – January 18, 2023
Federal Reserve Bank of New York – Summary of Economic Activity
Economic activity in the Second District declined significantly in the latest reporting period and most business contacts do not expect activity to increase in the coming months. Input prices continued to increase but have decelerated noticeably and selling price increases have moderated somewhat. Hiring has slowed, wage growth has remained modest, and businesses reported that they plan to add staff, on balance, in the months ahead. Manufacturing activity weakened substantially in the final weeks of 2022. Consumer spending was mixed but somewhat weaker overall, while tourism has remained strong. The home sales and rental markets showed further signs of cooling, though concerns about housing affordability remain widespread. Commercial real estate markets stabilized, and construction activity has remained sluggish. Conditions in the broad finance sector were generally steady, but regional banks reported widespread declines in loan demand, ongoing tightening in credit, and rising delinquency rates.
Labor Markets
Employment continued to expand, though at a more subdued pace than in recent months. A number of business contacts reported that it has become somewhat easier to attract and retain workers. A large upstate New York employer noted that turnover has slowed noticeably in recent weeks and that attrition rates have now fallen below pre-pandemic levels. Still, there continues to be strong demand for skilled workers—particularly in IT, finance, and sales occupations. A New York City employment agency remarked that, despite recent layoff announcements, layoffs do not seem unusually high and job postings remain plentiful. Hiring plans for the first half of 2023 remained solid.
Business contacts reported steady and modest wage growth, though one upstate employment agency noted some slowing. The steepest wage growth over the past month was reported from financial services firms. Businesses across all major industry sectors plan to raise wages in the months ahead—particularly in wholesale trade, transportation, and leisure & hospitality.
Prices
Price pressures, both current and projected, have eased noticeably. Business contacts reported that the prices they pay have continued to increase but to a much lesser degree than in recent months. Price pressures have abated most significantly in the trade, transportation, and manufacturing sectors. Looking ahead, fewer contacts foresee future escalation in prices paid than at any point since early 2021.
Selling price increases were reported to be somewhat less widespread than in the last report. Notably, retailers reported modestly declining prices, and transportation firms indicated that their prices were flat. Retailers and wholesalers indicated that they planned to keep prices mostly steady in the months ahead, while businesses in most other sectors anticipate moderate price hikes.
Consumer Spending
Consumer spending has been little changed in recent weeks. Nonauto retailers reported that business was relatively sluggish over the holiday season, with some of the weakness attributed to difficulties in procuring supplies and staff. Auto dealers in upstate New York reported that sales of new vehicles were steady to modestly higher, helped by improvement in the supply chain. However, sales of used vehicles have softened further. Consumer confidence across New York State surged to its highest level in more than three years in December.
Manufacturing and Distribution
Manufacturers wound up 2022 on a bleak note, reporting the most widespread decline in activity since early in the pandemic. Contacts in the transportation & warehousing sector also noted declining activity, while wholesale distributors indicated flat activity. On a positive note, a number of businesses indicated that supply disruptions had eased. Looking ahead, manufacturers do not expect much improvement, while transportation, warehousing, and wholesale trade firms were more optimistic.
Services
Service sector activity continued to weaken in the latest reporting period. Providers of professional & business services and education & health services reported ongoing declines in activity, while information firms noted a pickup in business. Contacts in the leisure & hospitality sector indicated some leveling off in activity, following weakening in the prior report. Looking ahead, information sector businesses expressed increased optimism about the outlook, but contacts in other service industries anticipated flat to modestly declining activity.
Tourism activity in New York City strengthened further in December. Hotel occupancy rates climbed above 80 percent, versus 60 percent a year earlier, and average room tariffs were up roughly 20 percent over the year. Moreover, visits to major tourist attractions, such as the Statue of Liberty, have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. While attendance at Broadway shows has been mixed, high-profile musicals targeted towards visitors have reportedly fared quite well. Despite a dearth of visitors from Asia—especially China—the overall flow of international visitors has been fairly strong, though visitors are spending less, on average, due in part to the strong dollar.
Real Estate and Construction
The residential sales and rental markets showed further signs of cooling in late 2022. Real estate contacts in upstate New York reported that prices have flattened out, and that sales volume and buyer traffic have continued to wane—in part attributed to unusually harsh winter weather. In and around New York City, sales of both single-family homes and apartments fell fairly sharply, while prices were flat to down modestly. Still, throughout the District, the inventory of available homes remains quite low, as many sellers have decided not to list.
Residential rental markets weakened further, though the high end of the market has shown some resilience. In New York City, rents have trended down modestly since peaking last summer, though they remain higher than a year ago; landlord concessions have also increased somewhat. Elsewhere, rents have generally been steady, though one contact in upstate New York noted that already high rents continued to trend up. Rental vacancy rates, though still quite low, have risen modestly.
Commercial real estate markets generally appear to have stabilized, though at weak levels. Office vacancy and availability rates leveled off in New York City, edged up in northern New Jersey, but declined modestly across upstate New York. Office rents were steady to up slightly across the District; aside from New York City, office rents are near or above pre-pandemic levels. The industrial market has been steady as well, with vacancy rates little changed and rents trending up modestly.
Construction contacts reported continued weakening in business conditions and were fairly pessimistic about the near-term outlook. New office construction starts remained at depressed levels throughout the District, though there was some pickup in New York City and Long Island. New industrial construction has largely dried up. Multi-family residential starts weakened across most of the District but picked up modestly in New York City, though from low levels. A sizable volume of new apartment development is due to be completed in 2023.
“Jan 20 (Reuters) – Google’s parent Alphabet Inc is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, it said Friday, as Silicon Valley reels from recent layoffs and faces a troubled outlook.”
NBC News confirms:
Navy vet Richard Osthoff has accused George Santos of refusing to hand over $3,000 raised in a 2016 GoFundMe to fund lifesaving surgery for his dog. Osthoff said he believes the money, which he said Santos withheld from him, would have saved his dog’s life.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that a contractor working for the air-safety regulator had unintentionally deleted computer files used in a pilot-alert system, leading to an outage that disrupted U.S. air traffic last week.
Rich, enjoy your trip to the “justice” system over your 3k and, at max, 500 dollar dog as a dog is considered property.
You are in America Land, where morals and values don’t matter anymore, like a VCR.
“Navy vet Richard Osthoff has accused George Santos of refusing to hand over $3,000 raised in a 2016 GoFundMe to fund lifesaving surgery for his dog.”
Contractor working for the air-safety regulator had unintentionally deleted computer files.
Apparently it was this guy, and it wasn’t an accident:
https://youtu.be/g_rWja1Xiu8?t=7
Patiently waiting for Santos to be outed as a cannibal, at this point, it doesn’t seem like such a stretch.
Ignore the politicians and the press about the FAA. The FAA has spent over a 15 years modernizing and do not need another billion dollars to fix the NOTAM issue.
FAA began a modernization program for their data universe back in 2007 and have deployed much of it as of now. It’s all based on more modern java messaging systems they built called SWIM on Solace JMS messaging. For NOTAM it’s called “NDS” NOTAM Distribution Service, only of many many data services they provide.
NOTAM database itself seems to be running on older tech Oracle’a Sparc/Solaris Hardware and OS. Database is probably some version of Oracle for Solaris OS. The FAA calls it FNS and it does the data integration, translation, validation and archival for the NOTAM data collection sources.
When I say older what I mean to say is Oracle bought Sun Microsystems back 2009 in part to get Solaris OS and JAVA as well as their corporate and government business. You would be surprised how much military tech ran and still runs Solaris OS, they have been moving much of it to Linux for the last decade or so. Oracle no longer improves the Solaris OS, they will support it for another decade or so as long as someone is paying the bill. I have read the FAA needs something like 25 million to fix the NOTAM issue, by upgrading it to a more modern system like AWS. This would be a move of data in a hybrid configuration for development and testing and perhaps a reengineer of data and data validation functions.
For a high level view of what the FAA has modernized in AWS take a look at the slide below. It won’t be long now before Oracle looses the rest of their FAA business to Amazon.
https://d1.awsstatic.com/architecture-diagrams/ArchitectureDiagrams/FAA-SWIM-Data-Lake.pdf?did=wp_card&trk=wp_card
Santos better have an agent by now…The book and movie deals are worth millions.
DOJ, and all banking regulators need to keep looking under the rocks. The co-creator of Inspector Gadget Jean Chalopin is now ensnared with a $50 million dollar loan from FTX ( probably could never be paid back) , presumably to sell his tiny US bank to them to launder money. I gather the royalty checks had run out as nobody watches 1980s cartoons anymore.
“Farmington State Bank, which does business under the Moonstone Bank name, is returning to its longtime role as a community lender and eschewing the crypto business, the company said in a press release Thursday.
The bank, which is based in Farmington, Wash., a tiny town in the eastern part of the state, is dropping the Moonstone Bank brand and will do business as Farmington State Bank instead.
Eyebrows were raised after the collapse of FTX when court documents showed the crypto exchange’s sister company Alameda Research purchased an $11.5 million stake in Farmington State Bank last January. It was a sizable amount, American Banker noted, given that Farmington generally had only about $10 million in assets over the last decade.
Farmington was owned through a holding company by French banking executive Jean Chalopin. Chalopin is the chairman of Bahamas-based Deltec Bank & Trust, whose parent company, Deltec International Group, reportedly received a $50 million loan from FTX.”
A mini Elizabeth Holmes emerges in Defi space. Once-rising star featured in Forbes’s 30 Under 30 Charlie Javice took JP Morgan Chase for $175 million by creating 4 million fake customers.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/charlie-javice-millennial-ceo-sued-by-jpmorgan-was-a-namedropping-cool-boss
I’m thrilled to be joined on the Science Committee by my Republican colleague Dr. George Santos, winner of not only the Nobel Prize, but also the Fields Medal – the top prize in Mathematics – for his groundbreaking work with imaginary numbers.
-Congressman Bill Foster
Summers Warns of 1970s Crisis If Central Banks Relent on Rates
Philip Aldrick
Fri, January 20, 2023 at 5:01 AM EST
(Bloomberg) — Going soft on inflation will plunge economies back into the recessionary depths of the 1970s and have “adverse effect on working people everywhere,” former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned.
The remark is a response to suggestions from economists including Olivier Blanchard, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist, who have suggested lifting inflation targets from 2% to 3% to avoid recessions.
“To suppose that some kind of relenting on an inflation target will be a salvation would be a costly error, it would ultimately have adverse effect as it did in a spectacular way during the 1970s,” Summers, a professor of economics at Harvard and a Bloomberg TV contributor, told a panel at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly made clear that the US central bank has no plans to change its 2% inflation target.
Inflation peaked in double digits across much of the industrialized world but is expected to drop rapidly this year on the back of falling energy and commodity prices. However, core inflation will remain elevated as wage behavior and companies’ price setting has fundamentally changed, Swiss National Bank Chairman Thomas Jordan said on the same panel.
“It will be much more difficult to bring inflation from 4% to 2%,” he said. “We will see if that comes with a recession or not. Firms do not hesitate any more to increase their prices. That is different from two or three years ago and is a signal that it is not that easy to bring inflation back to 2%.”
“We also see a change in the behavior regarding wages. If you look at wage formation, this is very backward looking. Basically we take inflation from last year and we use this to set future salaries – the kind of fairness argument. Once inflation is high, the pressure from wages is here.”
Summers warned: “It would be a grave error for central banks to revise their inflation target upwards at this point. Having failed to attain the 2% target and having re-emphasized repeatedly the commitment to 2%, to then abandon the target would do very substantial damage to credibility. If you can adjust once, you can adjust again.”
“The counter-factual is not, ‘can we have more inflation and no recession, it is, ‘if we fail to deal with inflation, we are likely to have a more severe recession at some point.’”
Central bank chiefs on the panel all agreed that tighter monetary was still needed to bear down on inflation, which still close to 10% in the US, the Eurozone and the UK.
Summers also criticized central bankers’ operation of quantitative easing during the pandemic, which he said has added to the burden on taxpayers. Under QE, central banks were effectively swapping long-dated debt for very short-dated debt just as “every corporate treasurer in the world was terming out its debt” to take advantage of low interest rates.
The Fed is now carrying a mark-to-market loss on its balance sheet of around $800 billion, he said.
“In retrospect, I think that was highly problematic,” Summers said. “We need in addition to thinking about the stimulative aspects of QE to focus on the balance sheet debt maturity aspects of QE.”
GOP threatening default on US Debt unless clowngress cuts Social Security & Medicare.
What the Fuuuuuuuck???
What did I say yesterday? They prob want a little higher inflation in the short term to eat away at debt. They will never come out and say it though.
“The remark is a response to suggestions from economists including Olivier Blanchard, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist, who have suggested lifting inflation targets from 2% to 3% to avoid recessions.”
Who the boomers gonna blame?
Ex says:
January 20, 2023 at 10:30 am
GOP threatening default on US Debt unless clowngress cuts Social Security & Medicare.
What the Fuuuuuuuck???
Well, have to continue watching what the Fed does. Hopefully, they stick to it. I don’t wish pain on people, but would love to use this powder on some cheap stock and real estate.
Yawn…I seriously hate politicians using the debt to pad their pockets in backroom deals.
Ex says:
January 20, 2023 at 10:30 am
GOP threatening default on US Debt unless clowngress cuts Social Security & Medicare.
What the Fuuuuuuuck???
A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump and one of his attorneys to jointly pay nearly $1m in penalties for pursuing a frivolous lawsuit that accused Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and other perceived enemies of the former president of engaging in racketeering and concocting a vast conspiracy against him.
The suit was dismissed in September and Trump was ordered to pay tens of thousands in November after one defendant sought sanctions. The latest order came after a group of the remaining defendants, including Clinton, filed a separate request for sanctions.
The end of the lawsuit marks the latest legal setback for Trump as he grapples with an array of civil and criminal investigations, including the probe into his retention of sensitive documents, while some of his lawyers are under scrutiny themselves for conduct in those cases.
Karen gonna Karen.
GOP threatening default on US Debt unless clowngress cuts Social Security & Medicare.
I don’t wish pain on people, but would love to use this powder on some cheap stock and real estate.
And I can’t wait to see tenants beat up greedy landlords on Reddit Public Freakout.
Who was trashing Indian executives on here recently? Sundar is my new best friend this morning, cha-ching….Wrote some puts to finance longer term call debit spreads I opened mid-Dec….chi, below, this is just getting stupid easy….
Legged into some long put ratios for TSLA earnings next week…very small debit, and low probability play, but very large payout. Remember how yesterday I said I was going to be judicious and greedy with my gains…uhm, that aged well I guess. LOL. Closing the screen and off to the beach boys. Have a good day all.
leftwing says:
December 30, 2022 at 6:32 pm
chi…Pull up the 3/17/23 chain for GOOG and run an 80/75P vertical, a 70P naked, 2x the number of 70/65P…different breakevens, capital requirements (risk management), returns, even thetas…It’s the beauty of the strategies, not only can I get paid for being wrong (even if the stock moves against me) but I can also structure the best trade specifically for the viewpoint I’m trying to express….in uncertain markets that’s much better than a binary stock strategy (up/down) with a 1:1 payout on 50% odds….
10:46 pathetic yes?
I assume GOOG is going to drop a deuce next week.
How do you screen for that?
Ex / Phx: I get it, but do you understand the implications of this?
I am self-employed, so I have to pay $20,000 this year so baby boomers can retire early and everyone got the COLA vig from heaven.
chicagofinance says:
January 18, 2023 at 6:46 pm
regarding inflation:
Maximum taxable earnings for SS in 2023:
wait for it……
$160,200
and everyone got the COLA vig from heaven.
So did every mommy collecting child support from daddy.
Gonna be a lot of daddy 4 am wakeup perp walks this year.
Punkin hEd, your girl is killing it!
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-cathie-wood-is-crushing-it-this-year-thanks-to-9-stocks/?src=A00220
GOP threatening default on US Debt unless clowngress cuts Social Security & Medicare.
So what does this mean exactly? That Granny isn’t going to be able to sit at the slots in Atlantic city for 10 hours anymore? Or that if she falls off the stool after nine hours of slotting she won’t be able to afford the repair on her fractured hip?
Fast,
“And that’s good news for the popular $6.8 billion-in-assets fund. It’s now up more than 15% this year. That easily tops the S&P 500’s 2.4% year-to-date return. And it also makes the ARK Innovation the No. 1 actively traded diversified ETF, says Morningstar Direct.”
Let the f’ing haters hate. They just don’t get it. Beat her up at the end of the cycle when macro was against her. So many haters drunk off the hater-ade.
“We want to actually balance the budget, which means we’re going to have to make spending cuts in every area of state government except Social Security and Medicare,” Comer said on NBC’s Meet the Press earlier this month.
For the last 50 years, the democraps have been saying Social Security and Medicare will be cut.
This is why the few kill it, while the lemmings barely get by. All the lemmings jumped in at the top, and then cried about it the whole way down. They then sell when they should have been DCA the entire time. You will never be able to help these people when it comes to investing. They have zero comprehension of buying in a negative environment, which is how money is made.
11:45 it means that the meager return … the result of which Americans have paid into will be ” less”. Those who might rely upon these services will be adversely affected.
I know that sounds incidental to the incel brain where the sufferer cannot see past their own grievances.
But once again regular folk get the shaft from elected officials.
re: default… It’s not a default they just won’t issue new debt. That means cutting spending elsewhere which probably won’t happen either.
All this chit chat on issuing of new treasuries means nothing, there are no clear goals yet for them to even being to haggle. They have until the summer or perhaps longer until this is resolved. There aren’t enough crazy people on both sides the isle from stopping passage of the next “Debt Reduction buy putting more on the credit card ACT” whenever that vote is taken that would 218 votes, you can bet the Democrats will vote for it along with plenty of Republicans. Same as it has been for 100 years for the debt ceiling. BTW they are not in session this week, the Washington DC show starts again next week when they are back with all kinds of nonsense from re-naming post offices to declaring December some XYZ month, to starting up the next set of hearings where they will perhaps subpoena Hunter Biden’s hookers and drug dealers and perhaps even get some more crypto clowns in front of the mic to tell us how great their ledger of play money is.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-prices-plateau-as-inflation-slows-to-prepandemic-levels-11674200099?mod=hp_lead_pos10
I don’t know how long this trend will keep up, but looks like it worked again. Said it last night…bitcoin was up….market will prob follow and it did.
China’s Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart
Many of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects are plagued with construction flaws, including a giant hydropower plant in Ecuador, adding more costs to a program criticized for leading countries deeper into debt
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-global-mega-projects-infrastructure-falling-apart-11674166180?mod=hp_lead_pos5
Bitcoin up to almost 22k. Crazy.
Wait until the regulations come dufus. Bitcoin will be worthless. People will keep playing the casino as nothing better to do.
Google pretty much killed 120 today. It was hit pretty bad a few months back, today was the death blow. Had a meeting on the calendar for late this morning to meet with 3 people from 120. Nobody showed to the call. Seeing the headlines now that most of 120 was laid off.
For those who don’t know what Area 120 is – it’s essentially Google’s incubator. It was a key part of it’s culture, even called out in many movies/documentaries. It’s pretty nuts.
According to a report from Reuters China s Belt and Road infrastructure projects are falling apart around the world. Not surprising. I wonder what the quality is for all those huge apartment complexes is like, or for all its military hardware, including their air craft carriers?
You reckon each one of those kids making $300k?
grim says:
January 20, 2023 at 4:51 pm
Google pretty much killed 120 today. It was hit pretty bad a few months back, today was the death blow. Had a meeting on the calendar for late this morning to meet with 3 people from 120. Nobody showed to the call. Seeing the headlines now that most of 120 was laid off.
For those who don’t know what Area 120 is – it’s essentially Google’s incubator. It was a key part of it’s culture, even called out in many movies/documentaries. It’s pretty nuts.
Travis Akers @travisakers
Pink Floyd updated their profile picture to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dark Side of the Moon, and the replies are… something.
https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1616274690938638338
The wingnuts need to get a life. What say you Gary?
Ghey !! Oh no. Kinda funny though.
Tech brats getting a rude awakening. You were kings…like the IT guys in the 90s. Getting paid insane amount for the work. Maybe this is one of the workers let go in that division, grim. Click the link to read what he had to say.
https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1616542572456955923?s=46&t=JVe5YdMSbiJcMM3fcPDYvA
Jamie Dimon either has no clue what #Bitcoin is, or he knows exactly what it is yet ridicules and dismisses it out of pure fear of it being the ultimate disruptor to legacy banking’s core business of excessive and egregious fees.
Which do you think it really is?
https://twitter.com/jameslavish/status/1616286825739345921?s=46&t=gDOJI1sBJTYXrdDdTEC5qw
Bitcoin 22,500.
Two of the people I was working with sold their startup to Google.
Fabius,
Probably one of the few things we agree on. The rainbow is synonymous with the Flyod/Dark side image. Yeah, these people making those comments are mor0ns. Then again, I really am a hippy at heart. I probably would have been at Woodstock if I was of age.
Further, I zee some others made the same comments. Probably younger idi0ts who have no idea what that era was about, have no memory of it and can’t name a song on the album. I have vivid memories of sitting in someone’s basement, curtains hanging to make a separate room in the corner, black lights, posters, a ton of weed and Dark Side (on vinyl of course) playing on a Technics turn table.
You weren’t kidding with the “elite” talk. Wow.
What does this mean for google and the economy?
grim says:
January 20, 2023 at 7:43 pm
Two of the people I was working with sold their startup to Google.
Left: What in the name of fuck is happening at Lynah?
So much fake news about #FSDBeta being vaporware and yet it’s insane how it can handle real world situations like this. A four way stop with pedestrians along with a random cross walk with pedestrian. The lady even waves thinking it was me doing it. 95% of people don’t this.
https://twitter.com/teslaownerssv/status/1616272423753777153?s=46&t=2ihZZTsdLAvashd5to1lMA
Tesla has to be one of the most rewarding safe investments out there at this price. If it goes lower, buy more.
I’m prob starting my DCA into DNA on Monday. Will provide the details on here when I do. Dna is my baby. I am going to build a nice long-term position at these levels with whatever spare cash I have. All will be posted here.
*Like Ronald Reagan said:
The 9 most terrifying words are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”
Ed
Sounds like classical America. Some albums are above politics and DOSTM is one.
DSOTM..geez. Night all.
Pumps why does it matter if you pay 1.60
Or 1.50 or 1.40 for DNA? If you believe in the company, those Pennies are insignificant. Sounds like you are scared and just talking to get attention again.