The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) released its “hey man, lots of jobs open” report last week. The problem is that the credibility of the report is only as good as the credibility of the organization that prepares the report. In this case, the BLS and Census Bureau, both of which are notorious for highly suspect data collection and data “adjustment” techniques (true story: sometimes Census Bureau agents just make it up if they don’t have time to keep canvassing after lunch). Our take is that most of the job listings spit out by the BLS sausage grinder are fictitious.
In addition to this, and interpreted by the media spin-meisters and Government propagandists as evidence that “Trump’s trade war is working” and “the economy is running full bore,” the trade deficit report for April showed a large percentage drop in the trade deficit. Indeed, the trade deficit fell month to month the most since 2008. If you buy into the narrative that the economy is strong, you don’t want the trade deficit to decline in correlation with a similar decline in 2008. In truth, the trade deficit declined because imports fell more than exports rose. Imports are falling because personal consumption spending is now contracting per the latest GDP revision. It used to be, a long time ago, that the trade report was called the “U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services” report. Now it’s simply referenced as “the trade deficit report.”
Final, we believe that the best time to accumulate a winning investment is when no one else wants to hear about it. The U.S. investor sentiment toward the precious metals and mining stock sector is almost as bad as it was in late November 2015, which is when the 5-year bear cycle – which followed an 11-year bull cycle – came to an end. We explain why the next leg in the secular precious metals bull market is about to take off this week episode of, “WTF Just Happened?”: