Disappointing Jobs Report

The stock market is down this morning after both President Trump and our First Lady tested positive for COVID last night. It will be interesting to see how the market responds during their recovery process.

A disappointing jobs report came in this morning showing 661k jobs created. This number paired with a massive reduction in the labor force of over 700k people are real reasons for concern. There has been a lot of talk in the news about the slight reduction in the unemployment rate being a good thing; however, many are not considering the 700k reduction in workers because the unemployment rate looks at the active labor market. This is happening at the same time that many large companies including Disney are announcing massive layoffs and the airline bailout layoff hold which just expired at the end of September.

Mortgage backed securities are slightly up this morning, just above their floor. Float only if you are able to closely watch the market.