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The JOLTS Miracle Feels Exhausted
Job openings were little changed from the prior month on the last business day of January, an inconclusive JOLTS report from the BLS on Wednesday showed.
The 8.863 million headline print would've disappointed those hoping for incremental evidence of labor market normalization, but another decline in the quit rate made it a wash. And the release anyway wasn't amenable to quick analysis: It included a raft of revisions.
For what it's worth (nothing, as usual) consensus wanted to see a drop in to
I, and I guess everyone, have been thinking about the following scenario: economy continues to grow pretty well + inflation is sticky + the Fed makes zero cuts in 2024 + interest rates stay high = then what? Who wins and who loses?
Maybe you buy the big banks (NIM goes up, AOCI loss fades as bonds mature, loan demand hangs in, they don’t have much CRE, non-bank lenders are pressured by high rates, Fed blinks on capital requirements). Maybe you buy REITs (occupancy stays high, new supply falls away, they scoop up distressed properties from banks/developers). Maybe you buy tech (cash-rich, if no-one cares about valuation then they don’t care about rates, and Lord AI sure doesn’t). Maybe you buy mid-cycle cyclicals (it isn’t early cycle, and doesn’t seem like late-cycle either, so by default . . . ).