Factories Show Signs\nof Improvement, But Will It Persist? <\/strong>Factory activity in August showed\nimprovement across the world, with the U.S., Asia, and Europe all broadly expanding.\nChina recorded sizable gains for new orders, production, and exports, while the\nU. K\u2019s factory output expanded at its fastest pace in six years. Italy and\nGermany followed suit with their best expansionary readings in two years. Here\nin the U.S., the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported that factory\noutput in August expanded at its fastest pace since November 2018.1<\/sup>\nTaken together, this data paints a picture of a global manufacturing sector in\nrecovery mode, but there\u2019s a caveat \u2013 manufacturing firms continue to shed jobs\neven as production rebounds. This trend may be part of a larger move amongst\nfirms to trim workforce and streamline operations, but it may also imply a\nshort-lived rebound. Lagging employment growth could place a cap on productivity\ngains going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n __________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the Debate Surrounding U.S and Global Economic Recover<\/a>y<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n High-frequency data\nhas become a go-to in the Covid-19 era. Economists and analysts alike are\nrelying on very short-term data like weekly employment reports, job postings,\nretail foot traffic, restaurant reservations, and so on to gain a better\nunderstanding of how the economic recovery is taking shape \u2013 or isn\u2019t taking\nshape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To help you make\nsense of this data, we have developed our just-released Market Strategy Report,\nwhich looks at some of the high frequency data points offering insight into the\nrecovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get a deeper look\ninto this data and what it could mean for economic recovery with our report. If\nyou have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn more, click on the link\nbelow to get your free report today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Download Our Just-Released August Market Strategy Report<\/a>2<\/a><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n __________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caution: Retail\nInvestors are Trading More Stocks \u2013 <\/strong>With \u2018free\u2019 trading apps like Robinhood\ngaining in popularity, and with major brokerage houses ditching commission-based\ntrades, many individual investors are back at the trading desk (home) buying\nand selling stocks. Individual stock trading is at a 10-year high \u2013 in the\nfirst six months of 2020, retail investor trading accounted for almost 20% of\nall shares traded in the U.S. stock market, which is double the level recorded\nin 2010.3<\/sup> Many retail investors are returning to the day trading\nworld because they\u2019re stuck at home and looking for productive ways to earn\nreturns. But in our view, this trend does not end well. Many retail investors\nare attracted in the current environment to high flying names in technology and\npharmaceuticals, using technical indicators to trade in and out of stocks\nquickly. We think this makes investors vulnerable to losing more often than\nwinning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n U.S. Debt Expected to\nExceed 100% of GDP \u2013 <\/strong>The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated some drastic\nmeasures on the government level to stem the economic crisis. The CARES Act tab\namounted to roughly $2 trillion, and follow-on spending packages have added at\nleast a trillion dollars more. Meanwhile, government tax revenues are down\ngiven the recent tax cuts, a deep recession, and the new unemployment situation\nin the U.S. The end result: U.S. debt has reached its highest level (relative\nto GDP) since World War II, and is only expected to climb higher from here. By\nnext year, it is estimated that U.S. debt to GDP could climb higher than WWII\nlevels, which would put the U.S. in the same company as Japan, Italy, and\nGreece. Even still, global investors continue to buy U.S. Treasuries at a\nstrong clip, signaling that U.S. debt is still viewed as among the safest in\nthe world.4<\/sup> With interest rates almost sure to remain low in the\nquarters and years to come, the United States arguably has plenty more room to\nborrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Does High Frequency Data Say About Economic Recovery? <\/strong>Debate over the pace and breadth of the U.S. and global economy continues. Whether it\u2019s a v-shaped, w-shaped, Nike swoosh shape, or the new \u201cK-shaped\u201d recovery being predicted, economists appear to be all over the map. But the wide disparities in forecasting have brought to light a new way of collecting information to meet the moment: the use of high-frequency data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Economists and analysts\nalike are relying on very short-term data like weekly employment reports, job\npostings, retail foot traffic, restaurant reservations, and so on to gain a\nbetter understanding of how the economic recovery is taking shape \u2013 or isn\u2019t\ntaking shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To help you make\nsense of this data, we have developed our just-released Market Strategy Report,6<\/sup>\nwhich looks at some of the high frequency data points offering insight into the\nrecovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get a deeper look\ninto this data and what it could mean for economic recovery with our report. If\nyou have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn more, click on the link\nbelow to get your free report today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Factory jobs decline even as activity grows, debt could exceed 100% of GDP, perils of retail investing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-professionals","category-steady-investors-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10548,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8836\/revisions\/10548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Image-1-of-1-1-1024x395.png\")