July 6, 2024 | Largest US Banks, Jobs Report, Labor Market, Risky Investing and Reviewing Mid-Year Income

Largest US Banks 

I continue to remain optimistic about investing in the large financials, specifically the money center banks. For the most part they trade at good valuations and the recent stress test shows they remain healthy. All 31 of the largest US banks passed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test, which provided a hypothetical scenario where unemployment levels rose to 10%, commercial real estate values decreased by 40% and housing prices fell by 36%. Following the results, the banks released plans to buyback stock and increase dividends. JPMorgan increased its dividend 8.7% and authorized a new $30 B share repurchase program. Jamie Dimon noted the dividend increase marked the second this year for JPM. Citigroup raised its dividend 5.7% and said it would continue to assess share repurchases. Bank of America increased its dividend 8%, but made no mention of share repurchases. Wells Fargo increased its dividend 14% and said it has the capacity to buy back common stock over the four-quarter period starting Q3 2024 through Q2 2025. You likely won’t see these stocks double over the next 12 months, but I believe many of them over the next few years could produce sound returns of around 10% when including dividends.

 

Jobs Report

The labor market continues to soften, which should be a positive for Fed rate cuts. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 206,000 in the month of June, which was better than the 200,000 estimate but less than the downwardly revised gain of 218,000 in the month of May. Combined, nonfarm payrolls in April and May were reduced by 111,000. Looking under the hood, the report was even weaker than the headline number indicated considering government was the second largest contributor adding 70K jobs in the month. Health care and social assistance continued to lead the way as the sectors added 82.4K jobs and construction was strong as well as it added 27K jobs. Areas of weakness included manufacturing (-8K), retail trade (-8.5k), and professional and business services (-17K). Wage gains also continued to soften as average hourly earnings were up 3.9% year over year. This was below last month’s reading of 4.1% and is well below the high in 2022 of 5.9%. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.1%, which tied the highest level since October 2021. Part of the increase in the unemployment rate came from a 0.1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation rate to 62.6%. The so-called prime age rate, which focuses on those between ages 25 and 54, rose to 83.7%, its highest in more than 22 years. While a lot of this report may sound negative, it is important to remember that the labor market is softening from a very strong level. We also need to see the labor market soften to give the Fed more confidence in their ability to cut interest rates. I would say this report was very positive considering it achieved the goal of softening without being damaging. We should keep an eye on the reports moving forward to make sure the labor market doesn’t fall off a cliff, but as of right now I don’t see that happening. 

 

Labor Market

In the recent JOLTs report, job openings showed the labor market continues to soften but to a healthy level. Openings stood at 8.1 million in the month of May, which was an increase from 7.9 million in April. While openings have fallen from a record of around 12 million in 2022, they are still above prepandemic levels when they were tracking at just under 7 million. The report showed the number of job openings for each employed worker remained at 1.2. This is below the peak of 2.0 in 2022, but it is right around prepandemic levels. I would not be surprised if we continue to see the labor market soften even a little further. I believe this would be healthy for the economy as it would create a more balanced labor market between employers and employees.

 

Risky Investing

I’m very concerned that the bar on risk taking in investing continues to rise. We are already dealing with craziness like GameStop, Roaring Kitty, cryptocurrencies with no real value, and technology companies that have expectations that the earnings will continue to go to the moon. Now add to that list what is known as “zero days to expiration” better known as 0DTE options. These options currently account for nearly half of the daily volume of the S&P 500 index options, more than double the 17% in 2020. These are simply one day options on the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100. It is estimated by early 2025 these 0DTE’s will be available for individual equities as well. That’s unbelievable! There will be sometime in the future that an event will cause wide volatility and many of these gamblers will lose large amounts of money. I’m disappointed that this is being allowed and the SEC and other regulators are letting this happen. I can’t believe I’m going to put this in print, but maybe I should send this to Elizabeth Warren. I’m afraid unsuspecting people with money will see on social media some people shouting how they made tens of thousands of dollars one day with small investments. What you won’t see is the larger majority of investors losing large sums through this gambling tool. In fact, retail investors lost more than $350,000 on 0DTE options on an average trading day between May 2022 and September 2023. You also won’t see the fact that institutional traders with their algorithmic trading and market makers are able to pounce on split second moves, leaving retail investors with the losing crumbs. I’m in hopes sometime down the road we will see these smaller brokerage firms that are pushing the 0DTE’s hit with large fines and hopefully forced into bankruptcy. However, in the meantime, these brokerage firms will be bringing in millions and maybe billions of dollars in fees and commissions. There are more portions of the market now that is no longer investing, but more like playing the lottery or gambling and betting on short term movements. In my opinion 0DTE’s should be illegal and people gambling like this should lose their money as it is high risk gambling. What concerns me is they will relate it to the stock market and when they lose money they will say the stock market is risky. If you invest in good quality equities and have a time horizon of 3 to 5 years and they have strong fundamentals, stocks are not risky. Unfortunately, many people right now are caught up in the hype and are more into gambling rather than investing.

 

Financial Planning: Reviewing Mid-Year Income

Now that we are half way through the year, it can be helpful to review your income to estimate how you will end up by the end of the year and make some adjustments. Maybe you had some unexpected income like extra capital gains or a bonus or perhaps your business had more sales than you were expecting. These increases in income may push you into a higher tax bracket or trigger income-related surcharges like the net investment income tax or IRMAA. More income is better than less, but if this is the case, now is the time to mitigate the tax hit. If you are still working, it may be helpful to increase retirement contributions or change which accounts you are contributing to. If you are retired, you might want to adjust how much you are withdrawing from accounts or adjust which accounts you are withdrawing from. It may also be necessary to adjust your withholdings or make an estimated tax payment if you have not withheld enough so far to prevent extra penalties and interest for underpayment of taxes. With rising rates, the interest for underpayment of taxes is much higher than in years past. Other tax strategies like Roth conversions are better implement at the end of the year, but making mid-year adjustments can help your annual income end up where it needs to be.

 

Stocks Discussed: Micron (MU), Whirlpool (WHR), Nike (NKE)