The U.S. Unemployment\nRate Fell, but for the Wrong Reasons \u2013 <\/strong>In September, the U.S. economy added a disappointing 194,000 new jobs,\nwhich was the smallest gain since December 2020. The job gains fell far short\nof expectations, as did the economic recovery in Q3. The Delta variant surge\nput a soft patch in economic activity that showed up clearly in the data. And\nyet, the unemployment rate in the U.S. fell from 5.2% in August to 4.8% in\nSeptember. Good news, right? Not exactly. The quirk with U.S. unemployment data\nis that it measures people actively looking for work \u2013 if a person is on the\nsidelines and not looking for a job, then they are not counted in the official\nunemployment rate. Thus, the unemployment rate can fall when people leave the\nlabor market, which is what we saw in September. The number of workers who\ncited the pandemic rose in September for the first time since January and\nreached 1.6 million. There are other reasons folks leave the labor force \u2013\nretirement, lack of child care, or in the present moment, refusal to get\nvaccinated. Whatever the reason, a record number of Americans are quitting\ntheir jobs \u2013 in August, nearly 3% of the workforce (4.3 million people) left a\njob, which is the most since data started being collected in 2000. In some\ncases, workers are leaving for the aforementioned reasons. In others, workers\nare leaving jobs because they are confident, they can find work, and perhaps\nbetter pay, elsewhere.1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n _________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Handling Volatility \u2013 What You Should Do!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sudden market\ndeclines often result in emotional decision-making – like when investors\nbelieve that selling out of stocks is the best route to avoid further losses. The\nreal challenge is not finding a way to eliminate volatility\u2014it is developing a\nmental approach to dealing with it. Our guide, \u201cHelping You Manage Market\nVolatility,\u201d will provide you with insights and tips to do just that. Get\nanswers to questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000\nor more to invest and want to get answers to the questions above, click on the\nlink below to download this guide today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Download Zacks Volatility Guide, \u201cHelping You Manage Market Volatility.\u201d<\/a>2<\/a><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n _________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oil Prices Continue\nto Push Higher \u2013 <\/strong>Oil prices have\ncrept up to around $80 a barrel, marking a seven-year high and a 60+% increase\nin 2021 alone. Natural gas and heating oil prices have also soared, and most\nreaders have likely noticed higher prices at the pump. As ever, prices are set\nby supply and demand, and the current pressures on price are a result of very\nstrong demand being met by tight supplies. As the global economy comes back\nonline and U.S. consumers lead the charge in economic activity, manufacturers\nand suppliers are racing to ramp up production to meet demand, which requires\nenergy. While we might reasonably expect energy producers to ramp up production\nto capitalize on higher prices, doing so takes time and may not provide\nimmediate relief.3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Keeping an Eye on the\nRisk of China Contagion \u2013 <\/strong>China\u2019s\n$5 trillion real estate market continues to roil \u2013 home sales are stalling and\ncrackdowns on easy lending have choked off liquidity to some of the largest\nproperty developers. The year-over-year declines in home sales are approaching\n20% to 30%, figures that may arise in the short-term as the market\nrecalibrates. Many Chinese families have wealth tied up in homes and\napartments, which can put a dent in finances and spill over into lower consumption\nand growth. Meanwhile, China\u2019s economy is facing another crisis as President Xi\nJinping continues to press forward with market reforms that target China\u2019s\nprivate-sector businesses. Chinese stocks have been battered as the state has\nmoved from private technology companies to the education sector, and now to\nstate-owned banks to examine whether they have forged too strong of ties with\nprivate firms. The effort is part of Xi Jinping\u2019s move to shift China even\nfurther away from Western-style capitalism, which has been very damaging to\nChinese shares.5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Navigating Through\nMarket Volatility – <\/strong>One challenge that many equity\ninvestors are facing and will most likely continue to face throughout the remainder\nof the year is how to react to current volatility. It is important to remember\nthat volatility is a normal part of the market flow. We believe the key is not\nto look for ways to eliminate it, but to develop a mental approach to dealing\nwith it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Volatility guide, \u201cHelping You\nManage Market Volatility,\u201d6 <\/sup>will provide you with insights and tips\nto do just that. Get answers to questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest\nand want to get answers to the questions above, click on the link below to\ndownload this guide today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lower jobless rate partly due to people quitting, tight oil supply pushes prices up, Chinese economic risks rise<\/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":[71,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-private-client-group","category-steady-investors-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913","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=9913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10287,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions\/10287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/1_pic1-4-1024x395.png\")