February 9, 2022

The Appetizer

“I have tried my best these past 22 years. There are no shortcuts to success on the field or in life.”

Tom Brady in his retirement announcement. It’s safe to say his best was the best of all time.

Now, on to the numbers. Drum roll, please …

• 136: the number of S&P 500 companies trading at least 20% off their 52-week high.
• 6.6%: the annualized change in productivity in Q4 2021. Who said working from home would be less productive?
• $6.5 million: the average price for a 30-second ad spot in this year’s Super Bowl, or over $200k per second!
• $172 million: the purchase price of the New England Patriots in 1994. The team is now worth $5 billion.
• 6: the number of additional weeks of winter, according to groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. His prediction accuracy is about 40%.

Dig In
The Labor Market

It looks like a lot of people had a New Year’s resolution to find a job.

Despite the recent spike in COVID cases, the U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs in January, triple what economists expected. The previous two months also were revised higher by 709,000. Can we talk about the government getting the numbers right the first time?

More people are likely coming back into the workforce as the government stimulus programs have ended and companies continue to increase pay to lure workers. Not everyone who’s looking for a job was able to quickly find one in January, so the unemployment rate went up 0.1% to 4.0%. But they’re in luck. There are 10.9 million job openings and 6.5 million unemployed persons. The labor shortage continues.

Here’s the big picture: The economy has made a remarkable recovery. More than 19 million of the 22 million jobs that were lost at the start of the pandemic have been regained. This essentially seals the deal for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve in March.

Weekly Specials

Finally, after three decades, tearless onions are here.

They’re back! The Jamaican bobsled team will make its Olympic return after 24 years. Hoping to never have another 24-year gap, they’ve turned to crowdsourcing funds to buy their own bobsled and get more practice in.

Same-day trades? Yes, please. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the U.S.’s 17th stock exchange, the BSTX. BSTX will give members the option of settling trades same-day and will also incorporate blockchain technology. It hopes to one day offer trading on tokenized securities.

The word is MONEY. Pushing for domination of the English-speaking world, the New York Times acquired Wordle, the game that gives players six chances to guess a five-letter word daily. This adds to its existing games portfolio, which includes The Crossword, The Mini, and Spelling Bee.

The Dish

More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings. Of those that reported, 76% beat analyst estimates. Analysts now expect earnings to have grown 29.2% in the fourth quarter. Here are some highlights:

Investors hit the dislike button as Meta (Facebook’s parent) posted a status update that underwhelmed investors. CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost $29 billion as the stock fell 26%.

Amazon had the largest single-day market cap gain in U.S. history after it said it will raise the price for Amazon Prime subscriptions, and its cloud computing and advertising divisions saw strong growth.

Alphabet (Google’s parent) announced a 20-for-1 stock split. The company broke $200 billion in annual revenue for the first time, a 41% increase year over year.

Paypal shares tanked after it announced a shift in its business strategy to focus more on quality users to drive revenue growth. Management no longer plans to focus on incentive campaigns for minimally engaged users.