Oaktree's Marks sees the early days of a bubble, akin to 1997, when there were several more years of gains before big losses. "This is a time to put a little more defense into your portfolio & investing in credit as opposed to equities is one way to do it"

It's taking a longer and longer time for jobless Americans to get new jobs. Continuing jobless claims have been steadily grinding higher, now at new post-2021 highs.

At the same time, today's S&P flash PMI's pointed to real inflationary pressure. In that report, the manufacturing cost rise was the second-steepest since August 2022 and the service sector increase was the second-highest since June 2023. pmi.spglobal.com/Public/ Home/ Pr....

Since the last Jackson Hole meeting, annualized CPI has risen to 2.7% from 2.4%. Core PCE has crept higher to 2.79% from 2.73%. In that time, the S&P is up 13%, 10-year Treasury yields are up about 50bps while 2-year yields are lower by 10bp. The jobless rate has stayed at 4.2%.

The cloudy skies speech of 2023: "We are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies" The victory speech of 2024: "My confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2 percent."

Summary of Fed Chair Jay Powell's recent Jackson Hole speeches (1 of 3) - The pain speech of 2022: Higher rates will "bring some pain to households and businesses. These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation."

Yield curves keep steepening globally, particularly driven by 30-year yields. In the US, the gap between 2-year and 30-year bond yields has reached the widest since January 2022.

With a backdrop of potential fiscal instability in developed-market economies, gold prices are surging to new record highs. Traders are waiting for bond vigilantes to discipline politicians, but we're not there yet.

France faces a potential collapse of its government as soon as Monday when a no-confidence vote may oust the country's current leadership and its plan to cut spending. Yields on French 30-year bonds are at the highest since the 2011 euro debt crisis.

The UK faces the doom loop of rising borrowing costs, growing deficits and a government facing a lot of bad choices to raise revenues. Yields on 30-year gilts have reached their highest levels since 1998. (1 of 3)

For retailers, price increases have generated most of the growth in sales since 2021, with volumes largely flat. Meanwhile, companies are cutting staff on the margins and relying on new technologies to fill gaps. "The processes are human-light now." wsj.com/business/earni..

Goldman Sachs expects gold to surge to $4,000 an ounce by mid-2026. If the Fed's credibility gets significantly eroded, GS sees gold nearing $5,000. Gold prices have already doubled in the past three years. bloomberg.com/news/articles/….

Elon Musk could be the world's first trillionaire if this new pay package goes through. The board: "Retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla... becoming the most valuable company in history."

Today's jobs report showed a stagnant labor market, with the unemployment rate rising to the highest since 2021. Traders are now fully pricing in 100bp of cuts by March 2026.

All US tariffs announced this year would raise $2.4 trillion in revenues over the decade starting 2026. Under the invalidation of IEEPA tariffs, $704 billion is raised over the same time horizon: Yale Budget Lab

Consumer expectations of finding a new job fell to the lowest since in least 12 years, according to New York Fed data that only goes back to 2013 newyorkfed.org/microeconomics...

The number of workers on US payrolls will likely be revised down by 911,000, or 0.6%, in the year through March. That's the largest markdown since at least 2000, and as a percentage of the workforce, is the most since 2009. Final figures are due next year. bloomberg.com/news/articles/

BofA's Michael Hartnett says markets are betting the Fed will stay "ahead of the curve," cutting ahead of a turn in the economy, allowing US growth to re-accelerate and doing so credibly.

The S&P 500 has closed at a record high 24 times this year, and the Nasdaq, 22 times. Meanwhile, credit keeps rallying, with yields on the lowest-rated bonds falling to the lowest since April 2022.