Sunday, December 22, 2024

June jobs report, UK election results: Morning Brief

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On today’s episode of Morning Brief, Brian Sozzi and Brad Smith break down the market open and some of the biggest stories from the trading day, from June’s jobs report to the results of the UK general election.

US equity markets (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) opened Friday’s session largely flat, coming off the July 4th holiday and June’s jobs data. Nonfarm payrolls rose above expectations for the month of June as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 206,000 new jobs added compared to economist estimates of 190,000. The US unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1%, while many experts were originally forecasting it to hold at 4.0%. A

meriprise Financial Vice President of Equity Research Justin Burgin characterizes the data positively, highlighting the job additions and the unemployment numbers and noting that “it beats what we got last month.”

Acting US Secretary of Labor Julie Su joins The Morning Brief to discuss the employment growth seen under the Biden administration, saying, “If you recall, on this day in 2020, under the last administration, the unemployment rate was nearly 12%, and there was no national strategy to address the economy or the global pandemic.” Secretary Su adds, “President Biden came in with a national strategy, we’ve been implementing it, and of course there’s more work to do.”

Collapsed bitcoin (BTC-USD) exchange Mt. Gox is reportedly beginning to pay back the nearly $9 billion in bitcoin it owes to customers from its 2014 bankruptcy. With the influx of the cryptocurrency into crypto markets, investors are concerned that customers might sell off the coins quickly. Token Bay Capital Founder and Managing Partner Lucy Gazmararian notes that the Mt. Gox repayment event has been “tracked quite thoroughly in Bitcoin circles” and was largely “anticipated.” She suggests that “any selling [in bitcoin] is likely to be staggered” rather than occurring all at once. Moreover, she questions whether significant selling will materialize at all, stating, “people are likely to hold bitcoin for the longer term.”

Keir Starmer led the Labour Party to a landslide victory in Britain’s July 4th election. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Akiko Fujita analyzes the British pound’s reaction to these headlines and Goldman Sachs’ current outlook on Britain’s economic growth as Starmer shifts into his new leadership role as UK prime minister.

Over in the US, President Joe Biden is under pressure from key Democratic donors — like Disney (DIS) heiress Abigail Disney — who are withholding their money until he steps aside as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election.

On the tech front, Nvidia (NVDA) shares dipped in pre-market trading after New Street Research downgraded the chipmaker’s stock to a Neutral rating. On the other hand, shares of Samsung (005930.KS) have jumped to their highest level since January 2021 after the company posted its fastest pace of sales and profit growth in several years.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

It’s 9 a.m. here in New York City.

I’m Brian S alongside Brad Smith.

This is Yahoo Finance’s flagship show the Morning Brief.

That’s right.

Stock futures rising this morning after the June Jobs report shows some welcome signs of cooling here.

Yahoo finances, Jared and as for a and a fit have more.

That’s right.

The US labor market adding more jobs than expected during June non farm payrolls came in at 206,000, beating expectations of 190,000.

Meanwhile, unemployment unexpectedly rose, hitting its highest level since 2021 in a welcome sign of cooling for the jobs market and crypto crashing Bitcoin plummeting down past the 55,000 mark.

The spiral sparked by news that the collapse crypto exchange now go has begun making repayments of Bitcoin to creditors.

All coins including the and Binance coin are also hit hard on the news in all the markets are anticipating.

Mount Gox will distribute around $9 billion worth of coins to users.

An influx that’s expected to spur significant selling action.

Today’s action has Bitcoin on track for its worst week in more than a year.

And the UK opposition labor party securing a landslide victory in July 4th election on seeing the conservative majority after 14 years, London listed stocks climbing on the results led by house build their names.

The new leader welcome by Wall Street names Goldman Sachs, upgrading its growth forecast for the nation after labor sweeping win and R BC capital markets noting UK, home builders could be in for a new age if labor election promises turn into policy, futures are higher after the US, economy added more jobs than expected.

In June here, the data slightly tamping expectations for a rate cut in September, over 71% of traders are betting on a cut all in.

But that’s down from before the report’s release for more on this.

Let’s bring in Justin Bergen, who is the Ameriprise Financial Vice President of Equity Research here, Justin.

Thanks so much for taking the time here this morning.

You know, let’s just start off with the data that we saw come through in the jobs report here.

I wanna get your read in on it and what this signals for the pathway for rate cuts.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me this morning.

Uh I think one of your previous guests made to come in fireworks.

I hope you saw him yesterday because it wasn’t this morning.

It was just a good report, right?

I mean, you’re adding over 200,000 jobs uh in a month.

Your uh unemployment rate ticking up slightly and your wage growth.

Um, that’s 3.9%.

Right where it should be.

So, if you could put, if you could put it in a what, what could go right, that out of that report, it should be what we got last month when there, when there were quite a few fireworks.

Uh, Justin here.

Good to see you.

Uh, I’m just going through, uh, the street reaction on this report.

When do you see, or do you see an acceleration in the economy?

Um, maybe because of higher stock prices and, and tighter credit spreads.

That’s some of the chat that’s, uh, coming into my box right now.

Yeah.

So actually, um, GDP is slowing, right?

So if you look at where we were last year, our consensus forecast this year is for 2.1% growth that’s down from 3.5.

But if you, if you look back at some of the pri uh, previous periods, you go to 2018, 2019 when you had similar 2% of GDP growth and then you had wage or, uh, uh, unemployment that was above where it is today.

You had job growth below where it is today and consumer spending was still strong.

So to have a 2% GDP growth rate for the economy, that’s, that’s a good place to be in.

Why is the unemployment rate going up?

But you have, you, the fed wants jobs, job growth to slow plain and simple.

It’s not great.

You have some of the low end consumers that are being stressed but you do have, you can’t, unemployment rate for the last 50 years has been, the average is well over 4.5%.

So to be at this, you know, below 4% for too long, it’s very, very, very hard to, to have that type of wage growth.

What, what are the other characteristics then of normalization?

If we’re getting back to trend on markers such as the unemployment rate?

Yep.

So I think if you look at consumer spending that’s coming back down, you have the savings rate that is coming back down.

And I think if you kind of focus and shift at the earnings growth, you have 11% earnings growth, uh estimates for this year.

That’s fantastic.

Right?

I mean, Q two, you’re looking at 8.8% growth, that’s, that’s excellent growth for corporate profits.

And you look at the profit margin that’s a 12% expectation for Q two.

That’s actually up quarter over quarter.

Is this report bullish or bearish for stocks?

Pardon?

Is this report bullish or bearish for stocks?

I think it’s bullish, absolutely bullish.

I think if you look at that’s, that’s what uh economists want to see is this slowing, gradual, slowing of the economy, you have a job market that’s not imploding.

Consumer spending still continues to be strong.

Corporate profits are strong that that’s why the market keeps hitting highs.

And if you have this, um, 10 year coming down from 450 where it is now, 4 34 28 that, that’s what they want.

Lower rates is good for the economy.

Markets tend to look out, you know, six months, they’re pricing in the rate cuts as, as best as we’re kind of looking across the, the moving dial of the probability for those rate cuts as well through the rest of this year.

And even the frame of mind of how many we might see to start off next year.

How, how and, and what would be a big impact for this market?

That would, that would catch it by surprise perhaps?

Yeah.

So I think the question is not if there’s gonna be rate cuts, but when and the other question is why?

Right.

So if we have to start cutting rates faster than expected because the economy is falling off a cliff, that’s negative if we’re cutting rates because we have this normalization in the economy.

That’s good.

Right?

You can have that glide path that’s trending lower and still continue at a 2% growth rate for GDP.

Has the president’s policies been good for the job market at a 3.9% that we’ve had for quite some time kicking up to 4.1.

I think policies in general have been supportive of employment.

And again, if we can have that continue to trend a little bit at the 4243 where our expectation is for unemployment to be 4.2% at the end of the year.

That’s that gradual decline.

So I think if you, if you look at where the policy of the administration are, you have been supportive of uh unemployment.

All right, we’ll leave it there.

Justin Bergen Ameriprise, Financial Vice President of Equity Research.

Good to see you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

The Bitcoin plunge collapsed exchange Mount Gox.

I think I said that right is beginning to reportedly pay back the nearly $9 billion in Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash.

It owes to customers from its bankruptcy.

In 2014, stoking fresh investor fears that the customers might quickly sell the coins.

The finances, Jared Bry has more on this, Jared Brian.

I’m guessing you’re not a Mount Gox customer, but good news for them.

Over the next 60 to 90 days they’re going to get repaid.

This was a bankruptcy that happened.

Well, it was actually a theft, a high that led to a bankruptcy about 10 years ago.

This was a Japanese based exchange.

They lost over 700,000 coins.

Bitcoin specifically, and now the trustee is set to return about 140,000 to the market.

Now, what you’re seeing behind me, this is just one day’s price action.

A lot of dark right on your screen, Bitcoin down 4%.

Ethereum down 6%.

Here’s what happened.

The last four days, Bitcoin is down 12.78% and I’ve been showing this year to date chart saying that anything that happens between these two lines here, this was a price consolidation channel, just sideways movement.

It doesn’t matter now that we’ve broken down below.

Well, that does matter as you might know, we actually broke below the support level one time.

That was a false breakdown.

Is it another false breakdown looking on those, the length that price has traveled right now?

It doesn’t look like it.

But I guess that is a possibility you just need another day’s price action to really confirm this.

So we’ll get that over the weekend.

But what does this mean for the rest of the crypto enterprise?

The rest of the crypto universe?

Well, a lot of times Bitcoin is a leader here.

So we are also seeing Ethereum get down to the bottom of its support range, but you’ll notice it hasn’t breached.

It just yet kind of supports the idea that if Bitcoin were to recover very quickly, you could say, ok, that’s another false break down.

But again, that’s not my base case.

Uh Before we go, I do wanna check out crypto stocks this morning.

I’m gonna put on some uh early quotes here and you can see lots of downside action, hot trading 7.5% to the downside master strategy down 7%.

So just a lot of negative uh vibes in the cryptos sphere today.

All right.

Well, at least we have the positivity from Jared Blier.

Always Jared.

Thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

Britain’s Labor Party celebrate a landslide victory in the UK Prime Minister elections.

For more on what this means for markets.

Let’s get to Yahoo finances.

Akiko Fujita.

Hey, Akiko.

Hey there.

But we heard from New Prime Minister K star just a short time ago outside Downing street setting expectations for how quickly his government is likely to move on key issues.

Now, our country has voted decisively for change for national renewal and a return of politics to public service Starmer saying that changing a country is not like flicking a switch.

This will take a while and that expectation certainly reflected in the markets with the FTSE.

Now pairing those initial gains we saw at the start of trade.

Now we are seeing the pound firmly higher against the dollar, close to the high for the day as investors look for more political stability in the UK.

This was a sweeping victory for the labor party unseating the conservative majority for the first time in 14 years.

Much of that the result of voter discontent over the politics of the ruling party, but there is no question, the economy played a key role here as well.

The UK already the worst performing economy among G7 nations with few expectations for a turnaround.

Just a few months ago, the OECD slashed the outlook for the UK growth to just 0.4% this year and 1% next year.

Brexit, the COVID hangover, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all significant drivers for the slowdown with voters also expressing anger over the lack of housing as well as the wait times for National Health Service.

Among other issues, the election outlook already leading to a key upgrade from Goldman Sachs this morning.

The Investment Bank now saying it expects labor’s fiscal policy to provide.

In their words, a modest boost to demand growth in the near term raising its forecast for growth by 0.1% over the next two years.

But golden also warning about potential risks stemming from increases in taxation and the impact that could have on incentives to invest and also labor push to reduce net migration.

Goldman says that could tighten labor supply.

We did hear from outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Soak acknowledging the challenges ahead for the UK, although he did highlight the U K’s return to 2% inflation in line with the banning guys.

One more thing to point out here, voter turn and turnout was at 60%.

That’s close to a record low.

And while the center left party is celebrating its victories today, Nigel Farage, remember him the driving force behind Brexit.

He also found some success here in the election.

His upstart right leaning reform UK taking a lot of the Tory votes with Raj becoming a member of parliament on his eighth try, Brad.

All right, Kiko, thanks for keeping close tabs on those election outcomes for us.

Appreciate it very much.

Everyone.

President Biden facing pressures from democratic donors as he faces a key stage in his re election campaign.

Yahoo Finance’s senior columnist, Rick Newman joins us here to discuss ahead of what’s gonna be a big weekend for Biden here.

Rick lay it out for us.

The latest news uh is that some uh major democratic donors uh are saying they are not going to donate any more money until Biden steps aside.

Abigail Disney, one of those people and some of these donors are uh setting up separate funding mechanisms for somebody other than Joe Biden.

They’re, they’re not necessarily uh picking a candidate.

They’re just saying Biden needs to step aside and they’re putting their money behind that.

Abigail Disney is one of them, Mike Novogratz, the crypto billionaire.

Another one Reed Hastings is another uh who are behind this.

This just feels like a sinking ship guys.

Um You know, it’s one little development after another and uh we’re, we’re, we’re now getting to the point where Democrats are at war with themselves.

Uh And that is about as bad a scenario as you can have going into the final months of a presidential election.

So uh Biden still saying I’m in it to win it.

Uh He’s going to do this interview today with George Stephanopoulos of ABC.

I mean, the whole point of this interview is for Biden to take some tough questioning and be able to demonstrate that he’s up to it that he can explain away his terrible debate performance.

But uh I got to tell you guys, it feels like the air is coming out of the Biden campaign.

Rick, uh 206,000 jobs created last month.

Is this, is this Jaws report a, a good thing for Biden or at this point, uh voters can care less.

They just want to see him put some sentences together.

Job creation under Biden has been terrific.

I mean, Biden says all the time we’ve had the most jobs created during my administration in the history of the country, which is true and it doesn’t matter.

I mean, he gets no credit for that from, from voters.

People care way more about inflation at this point.

Inflation has been coming down, but Biden is losing the narrative here.

I mean, when you know he’s, he’s now on the defensive constantly about his age.

I think I saw another poll that said almost 80% of Americans now think Biden is too old to run and he’s only a couple of years older than Trump.

But uh people don’t think that Trump is too, too old to run.

So uh the jobs report Biden will be talking about it for sure.

But I it’s just not the thing that voters are paying attention to right now.

Is there anybody else?

Right now, who Democrats are looking at and ultimately has enough of an economic standing in order to signal to voters out there who are going to be thinking about issues like inflation, going to be thinking about issues like the broader employment trajectory right now, that could ultimately have that candidate kind of come out on top in any scenario.

Well, if Biden says he’s not running uh the immediate front runner for the candidacy is Kamala Harris.

It would be hers to lose just by virtue of the fact that she’s the vice president and her name is on the campaign.

Plus, uh she would easily be able to uh use all the money that the uh Biden Harris campaign has raised.

So it would be hers to lose.

And I think my way of thinking about it is um she would, she would um basically take the hand off of a pretty good economy and if she played it right, she would not, she would not have baggage of inflation.

So, I mean, Republicans have called it Biden inflation, they don’t call it Harris inflation.

Um So she would be able to say, hey, we’re going to have a fresh start here.

Um You know, and by the way, don’t blame me for inflation, the thing that bothers voters the most.

So she would get a fresh start whether she would, you know, effectively capitalize on that.

I have no idea.

I don’t think anybody knows, but that’s the way I would see it developing.

Yah Finan columnist, Rick Newman.

We’ll talk to you soon.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Uh Much more market analysis.

Straight ahead.

Stay tuned.

You’re watching the morning brief shares of NVIDIA slightly in the red.

The company has been bouncing back this week after a volatile period.

NVIDIA did get hit with a downgrade this morning from new street research analysts at the firm saying they see limited further upside and are downgrading the stock from buy to Neutra well bred, everybody who’s trying to be a hero on NVIDIA.

All I know is I go back to a recent JP Morgan story and it is very uh report is very simple.

Demand continues to outstrip supply for video chips and as long as that continues to happen, there might be some volatility in the name.

Uh how do you dump this stock?

I mean, they’re a beast they’re on on a path to potentially $10 trillion market cap.

You know, it’s not a stock particularly, that’s just one that you talk about where it’s just ok. Yeah, just trade this name.

No, it’s, it is an investment decision that has now been regarded as such for a long term kind of hold type of mindset.

It’s not something that you’re trying to day trade at this juncture, even though it got a little bit more affordable after this, the uh stock split that took place in a couple weeks back last thing you want to hear.

So you call up your money manager, uh, and they tell you, hey, I hope you had a great day.

July 4th.

Yeah, I’m gonna be lightning load on a video.

Hell wants to hear that.

I mean, that is the great way to lose your job and lose client money.

I mean, that is, it’s tough to sell stock that everybody is rightfully very bearish on for strong fundamental reasons.

I mean, the A I chip roll out.

This is not late nineties.com stuff with companies not making any money.

This is real stuff, real technology.

And this company continues to be uh the leader by, by years, I mean, by years they’re leading other companies.

Well, the interesting kind of annexation or at least.com bubble analogy that NVIDIA has been drawn to time and time again now is actually Cisco.

And if you go back and take a look at their stock chart, one of the things that you’ll see that is quite similar here is this hockey stick type run up during the.com uh era and then it had to grow into its valuation.

Now, of course, it precipitously in the aftermath of that bubble bursting.

But then eventually over years was able to grow into that evaluation because people could see the applications and the use cases for the technology that they were bringing to the market.

It’s the same thing with NVIDIA here.

We just don’t have a million chip data center right now because it’s not built up yet.

And so that’s perhaps the next part of this generative A I trade.

When we talk about picks and shovels, it might literally be picks and shovels, built up some of these data centers, picks and shovels, putting some of the electricity in the ground or overhead or what.

However, you’re building that grid out in order to make sure those data centers have the necessary utility and power that they need.

No.

Right on Brad.

And you know, I think you have to be thinking about it’s not just the NVIDIA trade, it’s the whole ecosystem.

You had a great conversation on my podcast opening, bid, cheap plug for myself there.

Uh with Brooke Dane, uh portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

You know, his I think view was sure you can continue own NVIDIA.

But think about some of the companies that are trying to compete with the likes of NVIDIA over the next 5 to 10 years.

It’s a marvel, it’s a KL A, it’s a micro, none of these companies are really going to take material market share from NVIDIA today.

But as long as they could sell that sizzle to investors, those stocks might rise along with NVIDIA.

I listen to your podcast every time.

I appreciate that.

I mean, that’s it right next to it.

So you don’t download it, you don’t download it.

I mean, look, I was in the pilot episode and then I never got invited back.

I’m wanting to come back.

Uh, you can come back any time you want.

Ok.

Done deal tomorrow.

Yeah, sounds great.

Yeah.

No, I won’t be here but I will be.

We’re tracking the shares of Samsung this morning as well.

They’re jumping to their highest level since January 2021 after the company posted its fastest pace of sales and profit growth in years.

Thanks in large part to explosive demand.

Forget this artificial intelligence.

Take a look at shares.

They’re up by about 3% here.

I mean, larger question of and we’ve been trying to wrap our minds around this for a a good bit of time and it seems like late this year, we’ll get the first true glimpse of how consumers gravitate towards some of this technology at their fingertips.

Not just because of what Samsung is putting into the market, but also because of what Apple has promised they’re gonna be bringing to the market.

Um As long as you have a certain iphone or yeah, Samsung doesn’t really get me excited.

I I look at the Samsung results and I’m like, ok, they’re selling some cool expensive phones.

What is the read through to Apple?

And I think Apple is just having a recovery story in China.

I think it’s playing out and that’s my only read off here uh of Samsung.

I mean, the biggest thing with Samsung to remember though is the market share that they account for globally within the handset devices.

I mean, Apple has been trying to and and Apple saw its highest kind of operating system marker at just shy, barely shy of 20% globally.

Last year, Samsung for the Android operating system.

And and how well that is able to be deployed to so many other handsets.

Samsung is still able to hold its own, but it’s seen its market share waning as a result of Apple’s ability to take on more market share globally, focusing in on China, focusing in on India and some of that international growth more specifically here.

But it’s, it’s gonna come down to the price point right now that consumers are willing to actually buy into some of these new generative A I inducing or, you know, uh I, I don’t even know what to call it, you know what it was so exciting.

I saw a video and looked real uh on X this morning, it looked like maybe the new ipad and it was somebody doing mathematical circulations on it.

And so they’re writing 20 plus 20.

And then all of a sudden the answer comes out, why did I have this in like the mid eighties when like elementary school?

But my takeaway was I’m watching this in real time.

Fair enough, but I’m watching this in real time.

Bullish NVIDIA, bullish, Mikron, Bullish Marvel.

I mean that that’s the whole NVIDIA tray right there in real time, the ability to write on something and it just gets the answers come out.

I mean, it’s awesome.

Isn’t it wild?

That one day we’re gonna have to tell our kids.

I remember what the world was like before the internet.

Yeah.

Well, that’s, assumes that no one’s gonna have kids.

All right.

Uh, on the other side we’ll have that opening bell.

I’m not, I’m probably just, not just the, just the reality.

No, I’m just not.

Yeah, we’ll have that opening bell on Wall Street on this jobs report Friday.

You’re watching the morning brief.

Do not go anywhere like a little Sozzi running around.

No, not gonna happen.

All right, we are just seconds away from the opening bell here on Wall Street and in midtown Manhattan at the NASDAQ.

And we’re taking a look at the futures this morning on this jobs Friday we should note, which has us back here in office and has us tracking the futures activity, which largely kind of unchanged since we got that report earlier this morning.

Hey, that’s all we got.

I mean, we had 206,000 on jobs.

You have downward revisions to the prior two months.

Uh Now lots of gets that we talked to so far.

Uh looking for Ray Cuts bread.

Yeah, right here.

We have a live look at the opening bell sounding off on this Friday, July 5th.

You got the great folks from Trey Technologies ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ some fun Fetty there on a Friday.

And then you have the United States Merchant Marine Academy ringing the opening bell at the Nyse.

All right, great group of folks there on screen.

Let’s pivot to the markets here as we’re taking a look at the major averages here and getting things recalibrated.

But as of right now, you can see the Dow Jones industrial average beginning the day flat just barely to the downside here.

We’ve seen some hyper waffling out of the gate and even coming into the start of today’s activity.

You like that one?

II, I love when you say hyper waffling that can I just can I do this?

I don’t want to be a prop this time.

I just want to like touch that I haven’t been to touchscreen in a while.

NASDAQ.

I think that is the main focus point today.

Folks.

Uh What is leading stocks like Apple and NVIDIA do after this report which really, I think strongly suggests of a rate cut in September.

Theoretically, Apple Fang stocks, nvidia.

They should do well with that type of backdrop.

Let’s take a look at some of those stocks too.

If you hit that heat map, uh, go for it.

I got you.

I haven’t, I haven’t done this in a while.

I want me to, I mean, look, we’re not gonna rust off here and we’re doing quite well.

Let’s take a look at the consumer discretionary.

We’ve got 12 or 11 sectors pulled up on your screen here for you folks, consumer discretionary leading the pack as of right now.

Let’s take a look at that year to day chart up by about 5.5%.

And of course, as we’re taking a look at some of the other red spots here, unfortunately, you’ve got energy pulling up the caboose.

You mentioned some tech stocks.

I know you like tech stocks.

Let’s give you some tech stocks here.

Take a look no further than NVIDIA.

I’m sure it was the talk of the barbecue for a lot of people yesterday.

They’re just trying to figure out.

Ok, riveting A I trade.

Does it still have legs here?

Riveting up 157% year to date?

Good stuff.

All right, Jared.

Uh let’s get over to you.

Uh Really?

Uh you are the true master of the touch screen.

Well, I’m just here.

I don’t know.

Let me just conjure this up here and we got, we’ll get the sector action behind me.

I like how you were looking at XL Y consumer discretionary has been the story of the week.

Let me just put a four day.

Uh Look at the, on our sector heat map.

You can see XL Y is the leader of 3.2% XL K that’s tech uh close second behind, but you were just looking at that year to date chart.

It is now broken through the upper end of its range.

You take a look at a five year.

It is still not eclipsing its prior year, 2021 highs, but looks like it’s on its way.

So, uh, what are the, so the biggest stocks in there?

Well, guess what?

And consumer discretionary.

It is Tesla and also Amazon and Tesla here, this is a four day look, Tesla up 25.8%.

Amazon up 3%.

So Tesla really doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

This is a five year chart and one of the things that stands out, Tesla is now just breaking out of this very long trend line that goes all the way back to its record highs in 2021.

So this is a technical achievement for it doesn’t mean that it’s going to race higher, uh, right away, but this is a first step to a trend change around which is higher, highs and higher lows.

So now we want to see a higher low as, uh Tesla eventually comes back.

Let’s put this to an intraday view.

I want to jump over to our meme stocks because I was tracking costs on, uh, on Wednesday and that stock was up over 100%.

Uh, just an incredible run.

Let me put our equal weight here and we can see costs in the number one spot.

It is up 44% just over 40%.

Now fluctuating pretty wildly here’s a five year look.

What stands out.

Is this, this little jump here, which is actually a pretty big jump.

Nothing near the jump we saw in 2021.

Nevertheless, I want to put this in context.

I’ll put a five day, look, you can see there’s the stock up 259% in five days doing what meme stocks do best confounding the fundamental analysis.

I would say Jared.

thank you so much.

Appreciate it, keeping tabs on the market movements that we’re seeing out of the gate here on the day.

Let’s get back to Bitcoin here.

Bitcoin sliding after Mount Gox begins repaying users inflaming fears that customers might quickly sell the coin to discuss what investors should do.

Now, we’ve got Lucy Gas Marian who is the Token Bay capital founder and managing partner, Lucy.

Great to have you here.

Thanks for joining us here on this topic.

I mean, what should we anticipate that some of the holders or holders may do as a result of Mount Gox now?

So, um Mount Gox has obviously been tracked um you know, pretty thoroughly in Bitcoin circles, so it’s an anticipated event.

Um And there’s also been a lot of trading of the claims prior to, you know, all of this being sorted out um on behalf of the creditors.

So, um it’s really up for debate as to whether 9 billion is going to sort of flow onto the markets in one go and it’s actually highly unlikely.

So any selling is likely to be staggered over a period of time.

And actually, there’s a question as to whether there will be any sellers because as I say, it’s, it’s likely that many of the claims have already traded hands and people already are either going to hold Bitcoin for the longer term or they’re going to sell, but it’s unlikely to happen all at once.

So it should be mentioned and the market should be able to absorb any supply coming through.

Lucy.

There’s a lot, I, I see a lot of chatter on the, on the various boards on, on various crypto boards, very focused on what happens with this presidential election.

Let’s just handicap this, let’s say President Biden does decide to drop out someone else swoops in and takes his place.

Who’s the better person for the Cryptocurrency market.

What’s interesting is there are a lot more sort of pro crypto voices in congress, in us politics and you know, we’re getting so many more cheerleaders and that’s largely driven by this stand with crypto movement and the funding that they’re actually getting from a co ordinated attempt by all the big players in the crypto industry to really change the perception around crypto, really get people for the new technology and you know, the infrastructure for a new generation of financial markets and for, you know, politicians to see it as such and actually see it as an enabler and a way for the American economy to sort of get ahead and grow.

And so I think they’re having amazing success this year in doing so.

Um there’s a lot of funding coming through and there’s a lot more voices and it’s not just the funding, but it’s education as well with all these crypto groups that are going to DC and really explaining and sitting down with lawmakers to set out what this technology really can offer American people coming into.

And even on the first half of this year, the crypto playbook was quite simple, it was approvals and it was the having what does the second half playbook look like for crypto?

So I think, OK, we’ve had a bit of a sell off recently, I think with every wave that we have, we’ve got new buyers that are unused to this volatility.

So it’s not particularly nice experience to buy into the ETF in January, be really thrilled with 30% or 50% gains and then be down 30% you know, that takes some getting used to.

So we’ve got new buyers entering this market.

Um And trading over the summer is typically quieter, right?

You’ve got the quieter trading months over the summer and Bitcoin is no exception, particularly now that we have Bitcoin listed on a National Stock Exchange.

So there is going to be a degree of correlation there.

Um The big question is what’s Bitcoin going to do when everyone comes back to work in the fall and the markets start picking up again.

That’s really when we can actually tell if Bitcoin is going to be in a deeper correction than is actually typical for most of the cycle.

And to this point, we are still seeing very typical moves in Bitcoin’s price.

If someone wanted to use this pullback, Lucy as a buying opportunity, what should their first stop be?

Um So well, it changes every time they break below.

So it was 56.

Now people are saying 48.

Um listen, I think a great investment advice, although I cannot give investment advice is to dollar cost average your way into the asset class.

You have to take a long term view on Bitcoin.

You have to look at the fundamentals.

If you’re investing for six months or a year, that’s going to be, you know, a pretty tricky trading strategy because the market goes through boom bust cycles.

So the best thing to do with Bitcoin is dollar cost bridge in and hold it for the long term because we are likely to see another cycle down towards the end of 2025 into 2026 as we get another cycle when these cycles really arise out of this Bitcoin mining Bitcoin halving, which happens every four years.

So I think as investors, you should really take a view on Bitcoin.

Do you believe it’s going to be a fundamental trading tool.

Do you believe it’s going to be the equivalent of the US dollar in a global digital economy?

Do you think more emerging markets and governments are going to start stockpiling Bitcoin as a reserve asset?

You know, take a view on what you actually think the utility of Bitcoin is because there are many different narratives associated with Bitcoin and you know, just buying it because you think it’s going to go up.

Um I would suggest having a longer term investment horizon.

Lucy Gas Marian, who is the Token Bay capital founder and managing partner.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Coming up.

All that glitters gold rising today except for its second straight week of gains that took you back to elementary school.

Well, for some of us, but can the commodity continue its hot streak we’ll discuss on the other side?

Interesting moves happening in the commodities markets.

Oil is trading near its highest since late April and on track for 1/4 straight week of gains and gold is headed for back to back weekly gains.

Scott Bauer is the Ceo of Prosper Trading Academy.

Scott.

Good to see you here.

Uh After July 4th, talk to us about uh gold are the fireworks just beginning in that commodity.

You know, it’s all about the dollar and it’s all about rates and the trajectory with the weak eco data that we’ve received over, you know, probably the last 4 to 8 weeks the jobs number this morning as well.

The trajectory has now been that the fed is, is more than likely cutting in September personally.

I think maybe they even need to consider July though.

That’s off the table for now, pretty much.

But the eco data has been weak and gold has really followed, you know, the path of the dollar in an inverse relationship.

So, uh, to me when we see how the dollar has hovered around 105 or so over the last, you know, weeks or so, to me, it has not been because of dollar strength, it’s been because of other currency weakness.

So now that we’re starting to see, you know, this eco data really get softer here.

I really think that we’re going to see a dollar that, that probably challenges 104 sooner rather than later.

That’s good for gold.

That definitely has, has been some of the impetus as we’re seeing gold uh really trying to attack those all time highs again.

So got Scott.

Isn’t this the most?

Yeah, I would say a great place to, to hedge your bets if you’re concerned about the election is gold right now.

The ultimate safe haven play.

I don’t know what the ultimate is, but yes, it is a safe haven play both from, from the risk of standpoint and quite frankly, from the dollar standpoint from, from rates standpoint is there, you know, potential downside.

Of course, there is, but I do think that gold is a great place to be here.

You know, II I, if you look over the last year or so and you saw the amount that central banks around the world were piling into gold and buying it and storing it.

It, it’s, it’s off the charts.

It’s unbelievable.

So I really think that the downside potential is gold is a lot less than what the upside could be over the next six months or so.

Yeah, U Bs had put their, their election watch 2024 as well saying that they think gold represents an interesting opportunity, lifting their stance on the asset to most preferred.

Uh given some of the concerns about geopolitical polarization, inflation in the US fiscal deficit and whatnot.

You know, Scott, how high do you believe gold can go if we’re talking new all time highs?

What, what is the marker that you believe that it could move to and, and perhaps even through, well, that all time high, what?

We’re about $80 away, $70 away.

It’s, you know, 24 or 50 or so.

You know, if you look technically at the charts here, there’s a pattern that could really take us up to 26 50 2700.

I don’t think we would get there that quickly though.

Listen, with, with all of the geopolitical risk out there and, you know, the added risk around our election right now or added, I should say uncertainty around our election here.

If we break those old highs here, there, there’s really from a technical standpoint, not a lot of resistance there.

We could see a pretty quick move up, Scott.

How are you, you know, outside of gold and commodities?

How are you trading into the week?

And what trades do you have on?

We have a president giving a very key interview at 8 p.m. has a couple of campaign stops uh on Saturday and Sunday, Monday.

You, you get the sense that something big could happen and you could see a lot more volatility in markets.

So I I have been long and continue to be long, full disclosure here.

Some downside foots spreads in spy in, in the queues.

Um Long, some Vicks upside calls, obviously, you know, those haven’t really worked over the last several weeks or months.

But, you know, something that, that I always discuss with my clients and something that I always, you know, talk to people about is buying that insurance when it’s cheap, right?

We, we all want to go out and price our homeowners, our auto policy, you know, our, our any insurance and we want to get a, a bargain, we want to get it on sale.

Protection is cheap right now in the marketplace, whether you go out a month, whether you’re going out six months.

So what I’m telling people is you want to stay in the market, you wanna, you know, capture this grinding move to the upside.

Fantastic.

Buy the cheap protection and if you have to give back, you know, a little bit of half a percent or 1% whatever it is fine.

But there’s this old trading adage of buy when you can and not when you have to.

And what that means is once something happens to the market, once as, as you just said, you know, that we’re maybe getting set up here for something to happen.

It’s too late.

The cost has has doubled, tripled.

So buy that protection when you can.

So that is what how I am positioning the day trading in the marketplace is fantastic right now.

Even though it’s summer, we’re seeing some volatility in pockets overall though downside protection way too cheap, in my opinion, Scott.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much for joining us here on this Friday.

I appreciate it.

Have a great weekend.

You too, everyone coming up.

We have acting us Secretary of Labor Julie.

So joining us to discuss the June Jobs report on the other side of the short break in the June Jobs report, we saw unemployment tick higher smidge there by about 1/10 of a percent coming in at 14.1% and ultimately wage growth a touch lower.

So what does this tell us about the economy right now?

We have Julie Sue the United States acting Labor side for Terry, joining us here on Yahoo Finance Julie, great to see you here.

Um First and foremost, just wanna get your read in on what we’re seeing in this labor economy and where there are areas that the White House still needs to consider doing even more work.

Another solid jobs report 206,000 jobs created last month, bringing the total.

Since President Biden’s come into office to nearly 16 million, the unemployment rate remains at historic lows.

It ticked up slightly to 4.1%.

But remember before this, it was at or below 4% for the longest stretch since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon.

We are looking at not just temporary improvements to our economy but a national strategy that President Biden brings that has resulted in the most robust recovery from 2020.

That could have been imagined if you recall on this day in 2020.

On the last, under the last administration, the unemployment rate was nearly 12% and there was no national strategy to address the economy or the global pandemic.

President Biden came in with a national strategy.

We’ve been implementing it and of course, there’s more work to do.

We are not going to reverse decades of under investment in our nation’s workers in our nation’s industries, in growing jobs overnight, but we’re on the right track, we’re making progress and we’ll keep at it.

Uh Secretary, what do you say to those Americans that are going to see this report probably likely over the weekend and they’re going to notice an uptick in the unemployment rate and job growth slowing down.

Do they have reason to be concerned?

I don’t think so.

I mean, you know, again, it is a very small uptick and it remains historically low.

I think what American workers are seeing is investments in their communities to the tune of $2 trillion under President Biden’s investing in America.

agenda, roads and bridges being fixed, airports, being modernized, clean drinking water coming out of faucets, high speed, reliable internet, being delivered.

A commitment to climate change.

All of these are happening in communities and what that’s doing is creating good jobs.

And our promise is that every worker who wants a good job should be able to get one.

And when I travel the country in our good job summer tour, we’re talking about the importance of a good job.

What that means to a family, to a community and why the president is so committed to making sure that everybody can have one.

The reality is with wages and there’s still so many in places here like here in New York where you can feel like you have a good job, but the wage still might leave you in.

What’s classified or considered a poverty level.

How are we seeing moderation and and in a better scenario for a lot of people out there, how are we seeing wages continue to move higher?

And outpace inflation because that is a concern for many households.

Yes, it’s such a good point.

So real wages have outpaced inflation under President Biden again.

That is not an accident.

That was not inevitable.

It’s because the president understands that we both need to create a lot of jobs and we need to make sure there are good jobs, good jobs, meaning somebody can make a living wage support a family put way for retirement as he always says, so you can look your Children in the eye, tell them everything is going to be ok and mean it so the actual quality of the jobs that we’re creating are very different.

We’re focused on ensuring that people have benefits so they can go to the doctor when they’re sick that there’s some real security.

And when I travel the country and see people entering a community college in order to get a skill to do a manufacturing job that did not exist before or in an apprenticeship program to help build up their own community.

I see that hope and security that only comes from a good job and we need to keep on doubling down on those investments.

And that’s why we need to keep up the work that we are doing.

Secretary.

This jobs report comes against a challenging period for the president.

A couple of key moments coming up for him over the next few days, a lot of Americans are concerned about the president’s ability to continue in this role over the next few years.

Should he win re election?

You’ve worked closely with the president.

Are there concerns well placed about his ability to do this job?

I don’t think those concerns are well placed at all.

I will say I was just with him.

Earlier this week, we announced the first nationwide standard to protect workers from heat.

You know, it’s hot out here.

Everybody knows it for workers.

Heat is not just an inconvenience, it’s not just a discomfort, it can be a workplace hazard and nobody should have to be afraid that they’re going to die on the job because it’s too hot when we can do simple things like shade, like rest like water.

And those are things that are in the first national standard that got done because the president said to me last year, what are we doing to make sure that those workers are protected?

You know, you’re asking what I’m concerned about.

I have the same concerns that the president has.

I want to make sure that workers get a fair shake.

I want to make sure that we continue to combat the massive gap between CEO pay and front line worker pay where ceos make in a week.

What workers cannot make working several years.

We want to bring down the cost of prescription drugs and relieve student loan debt so that people can look into the future with hope.

We fought for retirement security.

We’re putting more money into workers’ pockets.

Just this past week, a million workers got eligible for overtime pay because of this President’s economic policies.

So I share his concerns that this economy needs to work better for working people, needs to make sure that leaves no one behind.

And that’s the work that we are very focused on making sure that we reverse decades in which this was not the policy.

And so as President Biden has listened to working class families and households and tried to do and put forth those efforts that you just ran down the list of if those same households are expressing concern about the president’s ability for another four years to do a very high demanding job.

What do you believe the talk would be in the calculus in that instance?

I mean, again, what I hear from American workers when I travel is they are grateful that they have a president who finally sees them who finally understands them.

A president that walked the picket line the first time ever in history, a president who supports the right to organize.

And we’re seeing historic gains for working people, higher wages benefits, the right to join a union.

Again, those are fundamental.

Our president is called Union, Joe for a reason.

And he understands that when unions do well, the middle class is stronger, we build more pathways for people to feel a sense of security.

That is what we are.

Doing.

And we know and I know from traveling that that is what people see.

And again, we have to continue to deliver and that is why we’re on the right path, but we’re not finished yet.

In fact, we’re really just getting started.

Julie Sue the United States Acting Labor Secretary.

Thanks for always making time for you.

I finance, we appreciate it.

Have a good weekend.

Thank you.

It’s always great to be with you.

Thank you.

Coming up, we dive deeper into the June Jobs Report on catalyst straight ahead.

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