Job Openings Are Increasing

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 8, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday, according to the Conference Board the number of job openings listed online in the United States grew by 400,000 to 4.2 million last month.  In percentage terms this is a 10.5% increase.   Analysis: Clearly this is good news and is among a number of recent positive labor market signs, including the recent unemployment figures for February.  For the number of actual new jobs to...
read more

Commodities Trading Rules Are Flawed

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 7, 2011 in Blog | 4 comments Warning: this is another criticism of capitalism piece.   Commodities, especially oil and gold, have been soaring in price since the unfolding of Middle East crisis.  For me it is just the latest example of how commodities market trading rules are flawed.  Greatest among the errors is that commodities traders never need to take possession of the goods that they are trading.   Because...
read more

Unemployment Data for February Are Better

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 4, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning the unemployment rate for February was announced by the Department of Labor.  The data show that the U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs in February and that the overall unemployment rate dropped below 9.0% for the first time in almost two years.  Consensus forecasts had the economy adding 196,000 jobs.   Analysis: This result is clearly a very big positive for the U.S. economy.  I...
read more

Advertising Sales Up Is a Sign of Good Things to Come

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 4, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning one of the largest advertising firms in the world, WPP PLC, announced its full year 2010 results.  First, profits rose 34% last year.  While this sounds impressive, remember that exiting a recession many companies experience tremendous operating leverage. Because most businesses have trimmed their expense structures to the bone, any revenue growth has an out sized effect on...
read more

Lowest initial jobless claims in three years!

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 3, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning the Department of Labor announced its weekly initial jobless claims were at their lowest level since 2008.  Specifically, they fell by 20,000 claims to a level of 368,000.  This figure compares to expectations from economists of a rise in jobless claims to 395,000.   Long-term readers of the blog know that I prefer to look at the four-week moving average for jobless claims...
read more

1 March 2011: ForeWord Reviews Likes The Intuitive Investor

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 3, 2011 in News & Events | 0 comments Web-based book review resource, “ForeWord Reviews – Good Books Independently Published” has given a very positive review of The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth.   Highlights of the review include:   “Some sections of the book are nothing if not provocative.”   “The Intuitive Investor is engaging and comprehensive in...
read more

Dangerous Wall Street Practices Still Possessed of Life

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 28, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments In the initial moments of this blog I stated that there were three things that needed to change in order for the world to definitively leave recession behind:   The people that led us into recession had to change. The institutions that led us into recession had to change. The ideas that led us into recession had to change.   While there has been tremendous loss of wealth, many of the...
read more