June 8, 2024 Market Update

The U.S. stock market rebounded for the trading week ending Friday, June 7th, after the previous week’s modest loss (the first since mid-April).  The S&P 500 Index set a new record high on Wednesday before pulling back slightly by Friday’s close.

It was a volatile week for bonds, which had surged on softer economic news, but then reversed course sharply on Friday following better-than-expected numbers on U.S. payrolls for May.  By the time the dust settled on Friday evening, the U.S. bond market edged up for a second straight week, based on Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND), a proxy for investment-grade corporate and government fixed-income securities.  

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm hiring increased a seasonally adjusted 272,000 last month -- well above what economists had expected.  Employment was particularly strong in health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and professional, scientific, and technical services.

That said, the unemployment rate edged up from April’s 3.9% to 4% in May.  That’s the highest it’s been in more than two years.  There was also a modest uptick in the number of people applying for unemployment benefits.  Meanwhile, job openings have declined faster than economists had anticipated.  But at this point it seems that there won’t be more than one or two rate cuts this year, if that.

If this sort of research interests you, then I encourage you to visit The Milwaukee Company’s research team’s new website, Macro-Markets.com.  There you will find TMC Research’s thoughts on various investment-related topics within the broad scope of macroeconomics and financial markets.  We plan to use the website to share cutting-edge research that provides context and perspective to enhance strategic-minded investment analysis.  Recent examples include an update to one of our models for estimating the long-term performance outlook for U.S. equities and the implied forecast for the directional bias of U.S. inflation based on the nation’s money-supply trend.

Check it out, and if you like what you see, then be sure to subscribe to receive automatic email notifications of future website posts (see the subscription box at the bottom of the home page).  

That’s all for now.  Have a great weekend and invest wisely my friends.