TL;DR
- The ADP jobs report has come in way over the level analysts were projecting, with 497,000 new jobs added for June
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics US jobs report was far more downbeat, with 209,000 new jobs added against consensus predictions of 240,000
- Meta’s attempted takedown of Twitter has officially launched, with Threads adding 30 million users overnight
- Top weekly and monthly trades
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Major events that could affect your portfolio
The jobs figures for June have been released and the private sector results have smashed expectations, while the overall US jobs report was more muted. There are two different jobs reports that come out each month within a few days of each other (yep, how unusual for economic data to be complicated!), the ADP jobs report and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) US jobs report.
ADP is a big provider of HR and payroll software to the private sector, meaning they get the lowdown on the private sector job market every month based on company payroll data. The figures don’t tell the whole story, but are a very good indicator of the overall employment picture. The BLS report fills in the blanks by including data from the public sector.
And this month, payrolls have come in sky high.
The ADP report showed that 497,000 new jobs were added in June, well over and above the 220,000 that had been predicted by analysts and the 267,000 figure from May. Leisure and hospitality were the biggest drivers of the jump with 232,000 new jobs, somewhat flying in the face of the cost of living pressures narrative.
Markets were down significantly on the news, as the strong results mean a rate cut simply isn’t going to happen at the next Fed meeting, particularly considering the minutes from the last meeting.
On the other hand, the US Jobs report was far less exciting. It missed the forecast 240,000 new jobs with a result of 209,000, showing that the private sector is doing the heavy lifting in the labor market.
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Twitter has been feeling the heat since Elon Musk took the company private back in October 2022. No stranger to controversy, Musk has covered a lot of ground in this time, with controversies over censorship, mass layoffs of a reported 75% of staff, sloppy implementation of new monetization methods and removal of the legacy ‘blue ticks’ for journalists and public figures.
So it’s no surprise that many companies have been looking to strike while the opportunity is hot. Platforms such as Mastodon, and Donald Trump’s Truth Social have failed to make any major inroads, while BlueSky Social, a decentralized social platform run by Twitter’s original founder Jack Dorsey, remains in invite-only private beta.
One thing that all of these upstarts have in common is that they’re small scale startups with limited budgets. For all Twitter’s faults, they’ve remained the big dog in the fight.
But not anymore.
Meta has seen an opportunity to take a huge swathe of social media real estate, and have this week launched their Twitter competitor called Threads. With a direct link to users’ Instagram accounts enabling fast signup and the ability to follow all the same accounts with the click of a button, Threads has managed to gain 30 million users in its day.
After the rise of TikTok, this has the potential to be the second biggest shakeup in the social media landscape over the past couple of years. It’s a reminder to investors that nothing lasts forever, and there are always new challenges and opportunities that can change the status quo.
This week’s top theme from Q.ai
With that in mind, investors need to focus on diversification. Placing a bet on a single horse (or tech company) can definitely pay off big if you make the right call, but it’s a heck of a lot of risk as well. When you’re talking about your financial future, that’s almost certainly not the right risk to take.
And when you have an industry that moves as fast as tech, it’s even hard to pick who the winners and losers are going to be.
That’s why it helps to use cutting edge tech in order to identify the best opportunities for investing in cutting edge tech. Yeh, it’s a bit meta, but that’s exactly what our Emerging Tech Kit does through the use of AI. The Kit invests in a wide range of tech assets, including large cap tech stocks, smaller, growth oriented tech stocks and tech ETFs.
Every week our AI analyzes a huge amount of data and predicts the performance and volatility for all of these assets for the coming week. It then creates an optimal portfolio based on those predictions and rebalances the Kit accordingly.
For investors, it’s a completely hands off approach that keeps pace with the rapidly moving market for you, allowing you to spend time doing other things.
Top trade ideas
Here are some of the best ideas our AI systems are recommending for the next week and month.
NVR Inc (NVR) – The homebuilding and mortgage lending company is our Top Buy for next week with our AI giving them an A rating in our Low Momentum Volatility factor. Earnings per share is up 27.4% over the last 12 months.
Celsius Holdings (CELH) – The drinks company is our Top Short for next week with our AI giving it an F rating in Quality Value. Earnings per share was -$2.30 over the last 12 months.
Brookdale Senior Living (BKD) – The retirement home company is a Top Buy for next month with an A rating in our AI’s Growth factor and a B in Quality Value and Technicals. Revenue is up 4% over the last 12 months.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (MDGL) – The clothing company is a Top Short for next month with our AI giving them an F rating in Quality Value. Earnings per share was -$18.08 over the last 12 months.
Our AI’s Top ETF trades for the next month are to invest in the VIX, natural gas and oil, and to short materials and semiconductor stocks. Top Buys are the United States Natural Gas Fund, the iPath Series B S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN and the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF. Top Shorts are the VanEck Semiconductor ETF and the iShares Global Materials ETF.
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