However, such gauges can be “fluky” and are not in line with some other signals coming from consumers, said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. Debates over soft landings and inflation expectations and interest rate outlooks tend to miss bigger points, Sonders added.
Prior to 2023, Sanders and Schwab had been stressing the notion of “rolling recessions,” meaning that contractions could hit certain sectors individually while not dragging down the economy as a whole. The distinction may still apply heading into 2024.
“The recession versus soft landing debate sort of misses the necessary nuances of this unique cycle,” Sonders said. “A best-case scenario is not so much a soft landing, because that ship has already sailed for [some] segments. It’s that we continue to roll through such that if and when services gets hit more than the brief ding so far and it takes the labor market with it, you’re already in stabilization or recovery mode in areas that already took their big hits.”
After all, there’s nothing about a 3.7% unemployment rate and another 199,000 jobs that even whispers “recession,” let alone screams it.
At least for now, then, the U.S. economy can take another win with a small “W” as it looks to navigate through what had been the highest inflation level in more than 40 years — and a still-uncertain path ahead.
“Overall, the jobs market is doing its part to get us to a soft landing,” said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at jobs rating site Glassdoor. “It’s boring in all the right ways. That’s a welcome change after a few years of less-boring reports.”
The level of job creation was just above the Wall Street estimate of 190,000. Average hourly earnings rose 4% from a year ago, exactly in line with expectations. The unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to 3.7%, easing worries that it could trigger a historically dead-on signal known as the Sahm Rule, which coordinates increases of the unemployment rate by half a percentage point to recessions.
Still, the solid report couldn’t dispense the lingering feeling that the economy isn’t out of the woods yet. The fear primarily comes from worries that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases haven’t exacted their full toll and still could trigger a painful downturn.
The CIO of Livermore Partners told CNBC on Monday that many investors are hoping for a “Goldilocks” scenario, in which the economy doesn’t grow too quickly, or shrink too much.
Recent jobs data and inflation figures have boosted hopes that a recession can be avoided in the U.S. Nonfarm payrolls outpaced expectations in November, and inflation figures for October also beat estimates, with consumer prices coming in flat on the previous month and up 3.2% from a year prior.
He identified weakness in the U.S. consumer and the global economy — China in particular — and in the fact that inflation numbers remain stubbornly high in a number of countries.
“It looks like the U.S. is the best spot to be in, and I think that today that’s true. Except I think that [the] forward path — are we going to see things start to fall off a cliff? Or are we going to, sort of, glide path down and corporate earnings are going to be sheltered from the storm?” he said.
“That’s the thing, I think, people don’t have a really good understanding of today, but they’re believing that that’s going to happen — that’s the narrative.”
Oil and gas markets, which Livermore Partners is invested in, are “telling a whole different story” when it comes to the economic outlook, according to Neuhauser.
“When you look at the oil … and you look at the gold market, that’s telling you recession is in the front,” he said. “But when you read the tea leaves in terms of what analysts are saying, economists are saying as far as the U.S. economy — that the soft landing is approaching. That’s what, actually, the 10-year [Treasury yield] is telling you.”
Brent crude futures with February expiry were trading around $75.67 per barrel early Monday, down over 20% from their peak of around $97 per barrel in September.
Spot gold prices have soared from their early October lows of around $1,810 per ounce. The commodity was trading around $1,991 an ounce Monday, off a record high above $2,100 per ounce seen last week.
Both falling oil prices and rising gold prices indicate growing recessionary fears. At the same time, heightened expectations of a soft landing (following the strong jobs data) saw 10-year Treasury yields jump Friday. The 10-year yield was hovering around 4.254% early Monday.
Nadia Calviño, Spain’s finance minister and deputy prime minister, was appointed head of the European Investment Bank Friday — in what has been touted as a boost for Spanish influence within the European Union. Known as the EU’s lending arm it approved some 75.86 billion euros ($81.6 billion) in new projects in 2022.
“We also have a European Union with 27 member states, and it is a complexconstruction. But still, it leads the green transition in the world, it has a leading role in many of today’s debates, and I think this leading role should be preserved going forward.”
The organization “has the capability, the ability, to mobilize large amounts of investment, public and private investment, in the areas of the green transition, the rebuilding of Ukraine, and all other European priorities. So indeed, I do think that we need an EIB which is fit for purpose to support European policies going forward,” she said. She said she will also look to increase co-operation and discussion between global multilateral development banks to create a “global safety net” fit to meet new challenges.
“What we see is that we launched strategic projects in the area of electric vehicles, or precision health, or agri-tech … or chips. And this is actually attracting large private investments that see Spain as a great opportunity for them to set their bases and invest in R&D [research and development] and the development of new technologies. So I do think there is a chance for us to crowd in private investment if we do things right,” she said.
‘Global standard’ on AI
Asked about the negative reaction by some tech leaders to landmark new EU regulation around artificial intelligence, Calviño was firm that the bloc had reached the “right balance.”
“Some parts of the industry may not want to have any regulation whatsoever. But, you know, citizens are also expecting the public sector to ensure that the development and the innovation in this area is going to preserve human rights, our values and actually go in the direction of improving humankind’s living conditions … from this point of view, I think that we’ve struck the right balance.”
“There is proportionality in the rules for smaller players and for large platforms. We’re going step by step, starting with artificial intelligence having to show that something, a picture, a video, has been created through artificial intelligence, to start with … It is a very important step forward so that Europe is also leading standard-setting at the global level.”
On whether the rules risked hampering the ability of Europe’s technology firms to grow and compete on the global stage, Calviño said: “This debate took place when we adopted the general data protection regulation. And many people said, well, companies are going to abandon Europe.”
“Actually, that has become the global standard. And I think it’s going to be something similar in artificial intelligence. But I agree, we need a global standard. And that’s why it’s important that the United Nations is also looking into these issues.”
“Silver Lake firmly believes in Endeavor’s business and is not interested in selling its shares in Endeavor to a third-party nor in entertaining bids for assets that are a part of Endeavor,” Silver Lake said in a news release, noting that it owns about 71% of the voting power for Endeavor.
Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban and Managing Director Stephen Evans are members of Endeavor’s board of directors.
“Given the continued dislocation between Endeavor’s public market value and the intrinsic value of Endeavor’s underlying assets, we believe an evaluation of strategic alternatives is a prudent approach to ensure we are maximizing value for our shareholders,” Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, said in a news release.
The move comes weeks after French billionaire Francois-Henry Pinault agreed to buy a majority stake in Endeavor rival Creative Artists Agency. The deal was reportedly worth $7 billion.
Notably, Endeavor said it wouldn’t consider unloading its interest in TKO Group Holdings, the newly formed combat sports company that includes Vince McMahon’s WWE and Dana White’s UFC. Endeavor owns 51% of TKO, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last month.
