Calculated Risk

MARCH 9, 2025

The BLS reported 151 thousand non-farm jobs were added in February. During the Winter months, I like to look at the weather impact on the report. The BLS reported 404 thousand people were employed in non-agriculture industries, with a job, but not at work due to bad weather. The average for February over the previous 10 years was 300 thousand (median 222 thousand), so more people than normal were impacted by bad weather.

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A Wealth of Common Sense

MARCH 9, 2025

I have some good news and bad news about the state of retirement savings for Americans. Let’s start with the bad news. Torsten Slok shows half of American households have no retirement assets to speak of: Young people still have time to play catch-up. It’s scary so many people 65 and older have no retirement assets to lean on. This is not great.

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Retirement Assets 113

Calculated Risk

MARCH 9, 2025

Weekend: Schedule for Week of March 9, 2025 Monday: No major economic releases scheduled. From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 48 and DOW futures are down 294 (fair value). Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $67.04 per barrel and Brent at $70.36 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $79, and Brent was at $84 - so WTI oil prices are down about 11% year-over-year.

Economics 147

Economics Marketing Marketing 147

oXYGen Financial

MARCH 9, 2025

![CDATA[ While it appears that every day Americans may be DOGE-ing more waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal Governments, unfortunately America is on an unsustainable financial path and the numbers don't lie. The national debt has surged past $36.5 trillion, with no signs of slowing down.

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Government Numbers 59

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MARCH 9, 2025

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Marketing 52

Marketing Marketing Valuation Investing 52

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MARCH 9, 2025

The Wall Street Journal has an article up this weekend about investors rotating to dividend centric stocks and funds because they are doing well in 2025 as market cap weighting has struggled, especially since mid-February. The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) seems to garner the most attention. If you read the comments on various articles (always read the comments) there will frequently be at least one comment that says "put it all in SCHD and forget it.

Portfolio 52

Portfolio Numbers Insurance Taxes 52

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 9, 2025

Markets Are we finally seeing an opening for international diversification? (awealthofcommonsense.com) Don't let politics drive your decision making. (wsj.com) Education Alaska's rural schools are crumbling. (npr.org) This school superintendent in Texas makes $870,000 a year to oversee some 1,000 students. (propublica.org) Social Security What it would take to reform Social Security today.

Education 147

Education Economics Media Economy 147

The Big Picture

MARCH 9, 2025

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: U.S. Economy Shows Signs of Strain From Trumps Tariffs and Spending Cuts : Consumer and business sentiment is wobbling as fiscal support fades and fears rise that tariffs will lead to higher prices.( New York Times ) How the British Broke Their Own Economy : With the best intentions, the United Kingdom engineered a housing and energy shortage. ( The Atlantic ) see also How to lose the 21st century, in thre

Planning 194

Planning Engineering Economy Financial Services 194

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 9, 2025

Also on the site There's no such thing as excess savings when you are on your own. (abnormalreturns.com) The 2025 UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook is out! (abnormalreturns.com) Top clicks this week How to make the most of a market downturn. (fortunesandfrictions.com) Market crashes happen. (morningstar.com) Market high-fliers can't go up indefinitely.

Investing 189

Investing Investments Marketing Marketing 189

The Big Picture

MARCH 9, 2025

This is UnitedHealthcare. This is what happens when the Democratic leadership is somnambulant, people take matters into their own hands. I don’t know if this news has made it into the right wing blogosphere. But in the mainstream press this week there have been all these stories about Tesla sales tanking. Significantly. And now people are attacking Tesla cars and dealerships and… We can’t say exactly how many people are responsible, but one thing is for sure, they’re tapp

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Government Banking Sales 347

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