For many in and out of the market, they are only concerned about when we will get a real correction. So, I am handicapping the risks to the market.

Okay… the rally is long in the tooth, but is that a good reason for it to end? I understand when market mavens call an occasional pullback healthy, and how this long string of days without a 10% correction scares a lot of folks. Nevertheless, the fact is that would-be fence sitters would not be buyers on a 10% dip, although professional investors would step up to the plate. The thing is, I am not fretting a market correction, even though it has been a long time, but it is nowhere near the record. In fact, if this rally matched the record for longest period without a 10% pullback, it would occur on October 19, 2017.

My friend, Rick Newman, at Yahoo wrote an interesting article, “American Workers Lose Their Hustle,” on September 5^th of this year, and I must say, this article is spot-on! What happened to the hustle, not the dance, but the drive?

Hus·tle: Transitive verb; to make strenuous efforts to obtain especially money or business

In my old Harlem neighborhood, we used to call it scrambling: working more than one job to make more money. I admired the woman who worked at the metal fabrication company during the day, and in the evening, sold homemade French fries from her first floor window. Also, I admired the guy who worked at the post office and would deliver mail and book numbers (though it was the illegal lottery) during his rounds for extra money. For years there has been a huge effort to get Americans to stop hustling. These days, they call it work-life balance. Hollywood has pushed this notion for years too, from ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ to the movie ‘Click.’ The main character in ‘Click’ is a workaholic that missed all the great things in life, resulting in his family suffering from his absence. The movie was produced by Adam Sandler, founder of Happy Gilmore Productions, who also starred in the movie.

Currently, the hype is that there are so many ways for people to scramble from technology and social networks. It is thought that everyone has the potential to have more than one iron in the fire. Sadly, it is not true. There are fewer people working more than one job now, or at least a far lower percentage of the workforce. With wages lower for those that lost their jobs and found a new job during the Great Recession, it would seem logical that more people would be working multiple jobs, especially as so many people are working part-time jobs. It would stand to reason that a person needs more than one part-time job, so what gives? I think we can look to Europe for the answers. Big government tossing around lots of benefits for those not working creates a nation with a soft underbelly:

Back in the 1990s, I spent a fortune on fiber optic cables when I contracted a team of specialists to build my company’s website. However, what I got for six figures, the average person can get today for a couple grand or less. Today, you can start a business for $10,000, yet, entrepreneurship is so low, it threatens the economy. Historically, new companies create 3 million jobs annually, while big businesses layoff one million. Now, net job creation from startups is half of what it was… this must change to spark job creation.

Today’s Session

Equity markets were mixed across the world overnight, without any major geopolitical or economic catalyst driving the change. Here in the U.S., the major equity markets are trending to open flat in the absence of major economic news. Many investors (and consumers) are awaiting Apple’s (AAPL) unveiling of new products, including the iPhone 6, a smartwatch and a new payments system. This is quite significant since Apple has not yet released any new products in 2014. Industrial output in the U.K. increased 0.5% in July, the biggest jump in five months. This was better than the 0.2% expected by economists. Despite this pick up in production, the Bank of England is signalizing that interest rates will inevitably be hiked in the U.K. by the springtime. In the meantime, we feel it would be wise to keep the powder dry and see how the chips fall today.

NFIB Small Business Optimism

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for the month of August came in 0.4 points higher than the previous month at 96.1. Many companies indicated that they were interested in raising capital expenditures to better their businesses, resulting in the component for capital outlay plans rising 4 points to 27. However, the amount of businesses that feel sales will increase fell 4 points to 6 while earnings trends rose 1 point to -17. In addition, the amount of job openings rose 2 points to 26, though the plans to increase employment component fell 3 points to 10. Overall, the small businesses are very mixed on the different components within the survey, which demonstrates their uncertainty of what lies ahead. It is good that despite the uncertainty, businesses are continuing to invest in themselves to ensure that they are providing the best products and services available to their customers.