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Let’s take a closer look at Thursday’s employment report numbers on Full and Part-Time Employment.

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We’ve updated our monthly workforce analysis to include Thursday’s Employment Report for June. The unemployment fell to 11.1%, and the number of new nonfarm jobs (a relatively volatile number subject to extensive revisions) came in at 4.8M.

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The 20th century Baby Boom was one of the most powerful demographic events in the history of the United States. We’ve created a series of charts to show seven age cohorts of the employed population from 1948 to the present.

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The S&P dropped at the end of last week and then started Monday high. The index hovered around a 65 point range the rest of the week. The index is up 0.70% from last Thursday and is down 2.44% YTD.

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Note: This commentary has been updated with the latest numbers from Thursday’s Employment Report. Consider: Today nearly one in three of the 65-69 cohort and one in five of the 70-74 cohort are in the labor force.

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Here’s an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation? The purchasing power of your investment has increased to $15,442 for an annualized real return of 8.72%.

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The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution).

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This morning’s seasonally adjusted 1.314M new claims, down 99K from the previous week’s revised figure, was worse than the Investing.com forecast of 1.375M.

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With the Q1 GDP Third Estimate, we now have an updated look at the popular "Buffett Indicator" — the ratio of corporate equities to GDP. The current reading is 123.4%, down from 154.7% the previous quarter.

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"Travel on all roads and streets changed by -25.5% (-72.9 billion vehicle miles) for May 2020 as compared with May 2019. Travel for the month is estimated to be 213.2 billion vehicle miles." The 12-month moving average was down 2.39% month-over-month and down 6.5% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) was down 2.45% month-over-month and down 6.9% year-over-year.

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The last couple of years have been remarkable ones for yields. As of June 30, the 10-year note is 12 basis points above its historic closing low of 0.54%, reached on March 9.

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At present, multiple jobholders account for just 4.3 percent of civilian employment. The survey captures data for four subcategories of the multi-job workforce, the current relative sizes of which we’ve illustrated in a pie chart.

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Our monthly market valuation updates have long had the same conclusion: US stock indexes are significantly overvalued, which suggests cautious expectations on investment returns.

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Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis.
The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio
The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor
The Q Ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost
The relationship of the S&P Composite price to a regression trendline

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The latest monthly employment report showed a gain of 4.8M nonfarm jobs, which consists of a gain of 4.296M service-providing jobs and a gain of 504K goods-producing jobs.

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The latest JOLTS report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary), with data through May, is now available.

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Note: This update includes June close data.

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The U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, also known as the FT-900, is published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis with data going back to 199 and details U.S. exports and imports of goods and services. Thursday’s headline number of -54.6B was lower than the Investing.com forecast of -53.0B.

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Here is the latest update of a popular market valuation method using the most recent Standard & Poor’s "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates and the index monthly average of daily closes for the past month.

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All eight indexes on our world watch list posted losses through July 6, 2020. The top performer is our own S&P 500 with a loss of 1.58%. China’s Shanghai is in second with a loss of 2.15% and in third is Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 with a loss of 3.98%. Coming in last is London’s FTSE 100 with a loss of 16.66%.

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What does the ratio of unemployment claims tell us about where we are in the business cycle and our current recession risk?

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The moving average for the per-capita Light Vehicle Sales series peaked in 1986. Thirty-plus years later, it is now down 44% from that 1986 peak.

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Quick take: At the end of June the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 119% above its long-term trend, up from 106% the previous month.
About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over performance turns into underperformance and vice versa. Is there a pattern to this movement? Let’s apply some simple regression analysis to the question.

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This commentary has been updated to include Thursday morning’s release of Nonfarm Employment. June’s 4.8M increase in total nonfarm payrolls had revisions that resulted in 90K more jobs than previously reported. The Investing.com consensus was for 3M jobs gained and the unemployment rate to decrease to 12.3%.

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The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) has now released the June Non-Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), also known as the ISM Services PMI. The headline Composite Index is at percent 57.1, up 11.6 from 45.5 last month. Today’s number came in above the Investing.com forecast of 50.1 percent.

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The June US Services Purchasing Managers’ Index conducted by Markit came in at 47.9 percent, up 10.4 from the final May estimate of 37.5. The Investing.com consensus was for 46.7 percent.

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Here’s the latest on the three largest cryptocurrencies by market share: bitcoin, Ether, and XRP.

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In response to a standing request, here is an updated comparison of four major secular bear markets. The numbers are through the Tuesday, June 30 close.

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This morning’s employment report for June showed a 4.8M increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was above the Investing.com forecast of 3M.

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This morning’s seasonally adjusted 1.427M new claims, down 55K from the previous week’s revised figure, was worse than the Investing.com forecast of 1.355M.