NFIB Small Business Optimism

November 8 will mark the one year anniversary of one of the biggest political shocks in US history: the election of Donald Trump. Since that improbable victory, which so many experts had said would lead to a market crash, the S&P 500 has soared by 21% according to Goldman which calculates that the Trump rally so far ranks as the fourth-best 12-month gain following a presidential election since 1936, trailing only Bill Clinton (1996, 32%), John F. Kennedy (1960, 29%), and George H.W. Bush (1988, 23%).

While Friday's headline payrolls print - the lowest since May - was disappointing even to the biggest economic optimists, many found refuge in the sharp drop in the unemployment rate, which ticked lower to 4.5%, the lowest print in a decade. And yet there was a problem: with the unemployment rate tumbling, at least in theory indicating even less slack in the labor market, wage growth barely hit consensus estimates. Instead, if indeed the growth narrative is accurate, and if more people were employed, wages should be rising.

Authored by Michael Pento via PentoPort.com,

Surveys of both consumers and businesses show there is an extreme level of confidence regarding future GDP growth. Consumer confidence is now at its highest level since 2001. Small and medium-sized business owners, the driving force of growth in the economy, appear downright giddy; as the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index recently soared to its highest level since 2004.

Via Christof Gisiger of Finanz und Wirtschaft,

James Bianco, president of Bianco Research, thinks that the Federal Reserve will have to jack up interest rates and the US stock market is running into trouble.