Friday was another wild session in the market, unfortunately the employment report got short shafted.  Sadly, if the number was a dud, there would have been a lot more media coverage.  The report was worthy of celebration but most media outlets either didn’t mention the number or covered it as an aside to other dismissive coverage of the White House.

October 2018 (yawn)

• 250,000 jobs
• 3.7% unemployment rate

Go back six years and the jobs report was celebrated in the media as major progress for the United States.  It was considered another “green shoot” or sign of life.

October 2012 (cheers)

• 114,000 jobs
• 7.8% unemployment rate

Headlines called the news:” The October Surprise.”

The whole thing was thought to be orchestrated, not only the data (which was mediocre by American standards), but so too the media elation. The gloating and cheering were too much for the former chairman of GE, Jack Welch, to take, along with the data, which came in better than expected.

Nobody called last Friday’s jobs report the “October Surprise” and many tried to dismiss the news nonchalantly saying it wasn’t as good as reports under President Obama.

My favorite disingenuous note is comparing the last two years under Obama to the first two under Trump.  An honest assessment would be measuring the first two of each administration.  Hun, no thanks? 

Message of the Market

Forget the media, and focus on the market. I continue to like the way its acting.  Moreover, history is a great guide, and the average gain in the year after midterms is +15%.

I like the action in broken stocks like IBM, which paid more for Red Hat than it would have a year ago, but it had to make the deal and will become a real player.

Rumors persist in the cyber security area, with the latest chatter that Symantec (SYMC) could receive a bid.

We’ll see what happens with the midterms, but there will be a sigh of relief rally and maybe more of the pollsters are wrong again.