A quick missive

Just a quick missive for your weekend from Muggy Miami.

In yesterday’s posting I said it would be interesting to see what happened to the financial markets given the huge number of jobs lost in November (i.e. 553,000). As you may know the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 3.1%, while the S&P 500 was up 3.7%, and the NASDAQ Composite close up 4.4%. I consider this to be incredibly encouraging. After all, it is difficult to imagine a worse jobs report – the worst in 34 years. What is more, most major U.S. businesses have already announced some form of restructuring, location closing and headcount reduction. Thus, we are unlikely to see a repeat of this gargantuan figure; excepting the beleaguered auto industry and antecedents, of course.

I still feel that it is very important to be planning where you want to invest, rather than plunging in. The reason is that the sort of fundamental changes that need to absolutely take place in order to assure folks that we are not going to see a repeat of the most recent financial debacle have still not been fully thought of and implemented. Please stay tuned.

High regards to you all!

Jason