All Forum Posts by: Michael Wooldridge

Quote from @John Carbone:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Quote from @John Carbone:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Quote from @John Carbone:

@Carlos Ptriawan

this jobs market is going to be tough. Even the csco bright spot in earnings is cutting. 

Jpowell is popping champagne 

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/ar...

 Meanwhile jobs is historically low and unemployment claims fell last week…

https://abcnews.go.com/Busines...

Well no, the rate increased to 3.7 percent and fed is pleased that it went up. 

 Talking about last week's claims. Your missing the point that it will take WAY WAY more lay offs to have the impact you are describing. Especially with so many boomers leaving the workforce.

What's worrying is the Fed, Michael.

They seem really not like the idea that the market/corporation is capable to beat up the Fed expectation. 

They have self-obsession about inflation as much as some bear-market folks here wanna have housing crash.

This…when you have fed officials talking of raising to 7 percent, I don’t think they will stop until the job loses get to their liking. Stocks are off the lows, so I think they get the unemployment rate to where they want it. I agree jobs are strong now, but they are slowly trending to what the fed wants.  

Missed todays news as I was in back to back all day (new post above) Pretty hawkish comments, a day after this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

Ahh and here is the other one I had seen about not going to much further from a voting member on rates. https://www.wsj.com/articles/b...

These jerk offs need to get their talk tracks aligned…  

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Quote from @John Carbone:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Quote from @John Carbone:

@Carlos Ptriawan

this jobs market is going to be tough. Even the csco bright spot in earnings is cutting. 

Jpowell is popping champagne 

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/ar...

 Meanwhile jobs is historically low and unemployment claims fell last week…

https://abcnews.go.com/Busines...

Well no, the rate increased to 3.7 percent and fed is pleased that it went up. 

 Talking about last week's claims. Your missing the point that it will take WAY WAY more lay offs to have the impact you are describing. Especially with so many boomers leaving the workforce.

What's worrying is the Fed, Michael.

They seem really not like the idea that the market/corporation is capable to beat up the Fed expectation. 

They have self-obsession about inflation as much as some bear-market folks here wanna have housing crash.

 Missed the news today as I was in meetings al lday. interesting comments over last two days other fed officials had said they felt better about the 50bps hike. And even in BUllards comments he mentioned it all depends on the direction of inflation in coming months.

Time will tell but it’s still going to take al ot more push. IF they go to 5 not the end of the world. 7% on the prime though… 

I half wonder if the comments were designed to cool the rally thats been happening more than anything else. 

Here were the comments yesterday: https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

Quote from @John Carbone:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Quote from @John Carbone:

@Carlos Ptriawan

this jobs market is going to be tough. Even the csco bright spot in earnings is cutting. 

Jpowell is popping champagne 

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/ar...

 Meanwhile jobs is historically low and unemployment claims fell last week…

https://abcnews.go.com/Busines...

Well no, the rate increased to 3.7 percent and fed is pleased that it went up. 

 Talking about last week's claims. Your missing the point that it will take WAY WAY more lay offs to have the impact you are describing. Especially with so many boomers leaving the workforce.

There are two people here who work in tech telling you that companies are still hiring and replacing those engineers. A lot of these lay offs are finding jobs. 

Long story short it is going to take far more lay offs to actually drive up unemployment. It's still at a historic low and even the lay offs the last few weeks have barely touched it. 

Quote from @John Carbone:

@Carlos Ptriawan

this jobs market is going to be tough. Even the csco bright spot in earnings is cutting. 

Jpowell is popping champagne 

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/ar...

 Meanwhile jobs is historically low and unemployment claims fell last week…

https://abcnews.go.com/Busines...

Ultimately jobs drive everything. The labor market is tight and will remain tight for a very long time “despite” lay offs.

https://fortune.com/2022/11/17...

The world’s baby shortfall is so bad that the labor shortage will last for years, major employment firms predict

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

Despite this, he added the company believes demand will remain strong, especially as consumers continue to stay home more than usual. The typical Home Depot customer is still able to afford home improvement projects, he said.

Yep, folks are stayin' home and workin' on their homes....

 Some are but they were pre-recession too. I’ve had handymen hired recently in 2 states. They are slower but still busy. 

Roofers especially.

Spending is spending, and if people are rennovating still, money is still good. 

Or as an example:

Investors have kept an eye on Home Depot’s performance and whether shoppers are still spending on renovations and do-it-yourself home improvements as they face persistent inflation.

“We’re navigating a unique environment,” Home Depot CEO Ted Decker said on Tuesday’s call with investors. “We can’t predict how the macroeconomic backdrop will affect customers going forward.”

Despite this, he added the company believes demand will remain strong, especially as consumers continue to stay home more than usual. The typical Home Depot customer is still able to afford home improvement projects, he said.

Home Depot said Tuesday that while its customer transactions were down slightly more than 4%, its average ticket prices rose about 9% to $89.67. The company also said its sales per retail square foot rose 5%.

It’s really not too surprising in many respects. Job market is still strong, still below the historic lows. Some people are hurting but many are not. Age old tale always people with cash and right now the market hasn’t hurt enough job wise to break the trend.

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Michael Wooldridge:

On top of it Home Depot beat expectations also which suggests home renovation is still going strong.

You assume too much....It could also be things are so bad that homeowners are doing all the work themselves...

Unlikely. 1) that knowledge doesn’t rapidly expand to the level of renno that Home Depot regularly does. AND there are articles and other sources out there about renno going strong… for now anyway. 

Some of it? Sure enough to beat the way they did? Highly unlikely given the forecasts the business had to issue.

Again I’m sure it’s slowing down this qtr. It’s not unusual to see a last burst of people “getting it done” in many businesses before it drys up. I suspect there is an element of that here. But given the inflation/adjustments we will see into next year the timing is rather nice overall. Q4 earnings next year will be fun but by that point we should have different directional information from the fed. 

I still see pain ahead, especially on the markets given the rally that happened. But the elements of a soft landing are there if inflation continues on the trajectory.

Since the FED uses BLS I also expect inflation numbers are higher than actual since housing accounts for a huge portion of inflation. So by January/Feb I expect that to look much prettier. 

Time will tell. 



 

So thread is too quiet. Figured we are due for some updates.

So as much as people are being laid off guess what Walmart did today? Smashed expectations. https://seekingalpha.com/news/...

On top of it Home Depot beat expectations also which suggests home renovation is still going strong. Although to be fair I suspect this qtr is slowing since I just received a phone call from the primary Home Depot I used to see if “they could help with any projects” as they were calling their top customers or in other words I did two major renovations in a year with a lot being bought from them since same store is local. 

Anyway things are still strong, Although slowing as it will show for next two qtrs but if the pace continues it looks like we may come into that “soft landing” the fed was hoping for. No idea how they actually might get something right but it’s hard to see the numbers differently. 

Quote from @Victor S.:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Victor S.:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Victor S.:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Victor S.:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Greg R.:

Some other interesting news... A Federal Judge in Texas blocked Biden's loan forgiveness program. If this sticks and can only be possible through a bill passed by congress, it'll be dead in the water if the R's take the house. 

I knew a couple people who were banking on this, so this would be a big blow to those who were expecting relief from their high intertest loans. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/f...

 I think the biggest impact this year in the mega crash level would be the crypto wipeout. The impact in term of dollar is huge, maybe most Silicon VC now are 25% poorer after their stupidity :-) Their level of corruption inside the crypto business is amazing. Such in a way that the money coming from FTX is being re-invested to Sequoia (its own funder), that's Ponzi scheme.

But wait, there're a lot of folks here even in BP that restart to buy crypto LOL   

Greg as long as there're crazy people there we don't know what would happen. Few years ago I thought NFT and Metaverse is joke.

 Carlos, looks like even Mickey is freezing and/or laying people off now: 

Disney planning 'targeted' hiring freeze, some cuts - CNBC (NYSE:DIS) | Seeking Alpha

 So the problem with Disney is their margin is extremely small, only 2% (0.4B); their main source of income is largely from TV and park. Strangely, the income coming from the TV channels is much more than the park business while it's having higher operating costs.

It seems layoff in Disney Park is a great choice by the CEO. Stock should be up LOL

amazon - 10k workers. "Citing people with knowledge of the matter, the outlet indicated layoffs will be targeted among corporate and technology roles. Hiring had previously been paused in these areas while the company reviewed potential cost cutting measures and reassessed unprofitable ventures.
Within these divisions, the Alexa devices organization, human resources, and retail departments are expected to see the bulk of pink slips. "
https://seekingalpha.com/news/...

 Like I mentioned many times ….tech company will use this bear market time to cut cost by eliminating group that’s not profitable , in Amazon it happened to be robotic and Alexa team. Don’t worry those guys that got laid off with 250k salary and still have thousands RSu will find new job soon.


guys if we care we should care more if steel worker get laid off because they will have difficult time find replacement job and industry

I personally don’t care if the layoff is guy that’s having tesla, they will survive and have little impact to the housing.

tech in long term would be okay becoz dolar started to go lower and inflation seems going down pretty big next year.

the key is the dollar , if dollar keeps rising more layoffs is expected 

RSUs that were cut in half if not more? lol who is going to be hiring these people, btw?

My company can hire them LOL

send their resume to me we have cancel the freeze and hiring again to make america great 

it doesn’t matter if it is cut in half , 200k to 100k is still a lot buddy

we still have problem of difficulty hiring people

 i'm telling you, i really need some of that puff-puff you got there, buddy.

Got to get out to the coasts again. People with these skill sets are easily hirable even now. Even our company that has some freezes in some roles is hiring for these roles. As Carlos said so is his. 

Just about the number one risk CIOs are stating and have been for years is skills shortage, talent gaps. 

Many companies are still running about 30-50% of contract staff (you saw that with the twitter announcement over the weekend). What do you think is cheaper contract staff or employed?