All right here we go. The Employment Cost Index report is coming out in about 10 seconds. We are looking for a survey of 1.1 This is probably going to move the stock market today. We're looking at 1.1 or less.

1.1 or less. Anything above would probably be bad news. We need to see employment Costco one percent. Let's go.

Good news, Good News Good News Good Good Good Good Good good good. Oh, that's great. Uh, that is below expectations. Again, the prior report was 1.2 percent.

Now we're at one point. Uh, last, um, or the survey for this report was 1.1 percent. We just got one percent. Thank you.

Oh, this is actually really great. We want to see a softening in employment cost. This is probably the most important Uh report going into the Federal Reserve meeting. Uh, this is very, very good news we are seeing Now the NASDAQ going from negative to Flat Uh, you've got uh, only a slight boost on certain stocks.

It's not the most widely reported at peace. but I Wouldn't be surprised that as the day goes on, this actually ends up softening the Federal Reserve stance. And this could end up boosting stocks today. So I'm very optimistic about the Employment Index report coming in at just one percent.

This is great news. Uh and uh. And it's something that even Nick T reported is something that the Federal Reserve is going to be paying attention to. And that leads us to obviously needing to have an inflation discussion.

Which let's go through an inflation discussion, see what some of the risks are for inflation And the market? Uh first, I will just highlight the importance of ECI by showing you Nick t on Twitter Saying Fed officials have said they pay close attention to the Employment Cost Index a comprehensive measure of wage growth Q4 Figures just out aren't likely to change the outcome of the Fomc's meeting, which means we're still going to be getting the 25 basis point hike, but it could be in important in shaping the Outlook Well folks, Nick T often deemed to be the Federal Reserve's mouthpiece is basically telling us hey, Jerome Powell might be nice to us at the Federal Reserve meeting tomorrow, which is quite bullish, but it does stand in the face of some not so bullish information and what I'd like to do is in the most unbiased way possible. Try to go through some things that are good news, some things that are bad news and just realistic information regarding inflation. I'll also provide you insight into what's going on with what layoffs tell us in terms of where in the recession cycle, we could be a lot to cover. Let's get started.

The first thing that we have to remember is we have seen a deceleration and a reduction of inflation risks. However, there are a lot of companies that are reporting dangerous to us. For example, Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson both reported that inflationary pressures are still elevated and if anything they are worse on a month over month and week-to-week basis at the beginning of 2023. But they do give us hope.

They give us hope that by the second half of the year, we could actually see those inflationary pressures subside. Now that's a really big deal because it's also similar to what now. Brand new reports out are telling us from Whirlpool Whirlpool expects to see raw material costs provide relief in 2023, and they're already starting to see material cost. Productions So while we're getting this sort of initial good like bad news that oh no, costs are still running High Now more and more companies are reiterating inflationary costs seem to be coming down in fact Nick T The Fed's mouthpiece just posted another piece saying Whole Foods asks suppliers to lower prices as costs ebb.

The grocery store stain a chain says it wants price tags to reflect easing inflation. in other words, whole paycheck. In other words, Whole Foods is suggesting hey, it's time to start reducing prices, which would actually be disinflationary or potentially deflationary. One of the biggest complaints that I get every time.

I Talk about inflation potentially easing as individuals tell me. Kevin that's great that whirlpool and Procter and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson are starting to see some of their costs come down. But when are they actually going to reduce prices for us? Because when we go to the grocery stores, when we go to Target and we go to Walmart and we spend money, we're still spending a lot more money than we used to. and it's a sir.

And it's true. you're totally right to be pissed. But the good news is finally, the companies are starting to wake up and realize crap we're gonna have to reduce prices and pass these benefits on to customers to actually help. Boost Retail Sales Again, retail sales would also include discretionary sales.

That's usually where your margins are as well, right? Your margins for Walmart or Best Buy are going to be on some of those discretionary things. It's not the the one product you're going in there for because you need it. You're going in there because you need, uh, you know, a USB cable Best Buy doesn't care about that. They're trying to get you in the store.

So you go buy a TV a new computer, an Apple A computer so they can get their commission or you go buy a washing machine and then you use their higher margin Geek Squad or or or their their services their install services to go install that for you right and then sell you warranty plans and insurance plans and those are extremely high margin. Those are like 90 plus percent profit right? So or sell you gift cards which most people don't redeem their full gift cards so companies want you to come into the store. but the problem is people have been so squeezed and retail sales plummeted last month in December especially when you adjust it for inflation. We had a horrible retail sales report with downward revisions for the prior month.

Uh, companies are starting to realize we need to drop prices otherwise people are going to stop spending Now this is a good news. This is very good news. I think I mean listen to this Whole Foods is asking suppliers to help the retailer bring prices down on packaged groceries. As inflation moderates, they want to bring down retail prices in its store aisles so as their own costs start to decline as Food suppliers have raised wholesale prices citing higher Transportation labor and production costs Supermarket Operators say they have passed those increases along to Consumers This was previously as prices have increased after more than a year of price increases Shoppers have been cutting back on purchases which is what I've just described buying cheaper versions of groceries and seeking out deals across Supermarket aisles.

Some people I actually used to do this when I had no money I would look at the circulars to see where grapes were on sale like who had the best sale on grapes and I have a certain area where there's Trader Joe's would sell grapes for say 2.99 Vons would sell Graves for 3.99 a pound and I'd hop on over and go to Ralph's and get them when they had the 99 cent per pound special and they had like a lot of grapes you know so you know I I Some people argue, hey, was that really worth your time? Look back then I was working for seven dollars an hour. The answer is yes, it was worth my time. but the point is, that's what people do when they don't have a lot of money. It's very normal.

That's what I did as well when I didn't have a lot of money. We know our customers are weighing the impacts of inflationary pressures the company has worked over the past year to absorb. Rising Food costs, offer new promotions, work with suppliers Whole Foods Rate of price increases have has been lower than the industry average. Yeah, probably because you started a lot higher.

The spokesman woman said adding that the chain has lowered prices on some items including cereal, bread and sparkling water and the company is in committed to ensuring that prices were reflect easing inflation. Now this is great. Overall inflation is starting to cool. Prices of fresh fruits uh Fish Seafood fell in December from November levels.

Obviously we still have issues with things like eggs. Doesn't help that apparently an egg manufacturing facility uh, burned down in America that that hurts so certain things are clearly still hot spots. But look, yeah, we are still seeing some uh, strong indicators that are getting stronger and stronger. Fortunately that inflationary costs are expected to plummet and that's good.

That's very good, especially if those benefits get get passed on to Consumers. Now, while inflation is a decelerating, there are red flags. One of the biggest red flags is what some folks are calling the potential for a second wave or a second chapter of inflation. This is what Michael Burry's been warning about.

Michael Barry's taking a little step further. He suggests. Look, the Fed's gonna ease, the Fed's gonna pause, then they're going to reduce rates, are going to cause another wave of inflation, and boom, we'll be right back to where we started another disaster where the markets have to fall. I Personally don't necessarily agree with that assessment, but that's okay.

We'll leave my opinion out of it for right now. Another second chapter version of inflation, though, is a concern that in some areas outside of the United States you're actually starting to see inflation surprise again. For example, the Spanish Spain's Consumer Price Index report just came in at 5.8 percent versus an expectation of five percent. and this is suggesting that in some Emerging Markets we're starting to see inflation become synchronous throughout the world over time that higher prices in one country lead to higher prices in another country.

And the implication of this could be that eventually, as we see inflation go through a second chapter in the rest of the world, we could see upside risks to inflation in America. Some of those upside risks to inflation in America might be that Medical Services could jump Medicare Payments will increase at their highest rate in 14 years that's already expected. We see the expectation that maybe rents or owner's equivalent rents could stay higher for longer that yes, used car prices are going down. but if that decline goes away in February which is a five percent wait for inflation, is it possible that other aspects like rent staying higher longer or medical services staying higher longer or Rising could actually lead inflation to mist to the upside, especially with the fact that in January we get new CPI weights, which we won't see until the February A Report on inflation, which will look at the schedule of releases for when we get the January report of inflation, we get the January report of inflation on February 14th.

So mark your calendar for that. But the question here is, how will those new that's Valentine's Day By the way, how will those new weights affect how inflation is calculated? Especially since we're moving from a two-year waiting measure to just a one-year waiting measure that's likely being done to get rid of the 2020 pandemic distortions that's putting on the best case scenario here, not the tinfoil hat scenario. a tin foil hat scenario. Of course, being oh, of course, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is going to manipulate the data to make inflation look like it's artificially lower than it actually is? That's the more tinfoil hat Direction.

But anyway, the the concerns are that we could be facing a second wave of inflation, not just because of Emerging Market Risks whether it's Spain or other countries or medical care. service to stay higher longer. Rents stay higher longer. used car prices stop falling which hurts with the the deflation fight or disinflationary fight.

But then you've also got the Chinese reopening. Now we've talked about the Chinese reopening ad nauseum on the channel, but I'll just give you the quick bottom line: the Chinese consumer is only about 32 percent of the Chinese economy compared to 70. That is, the consumer of the United States economy is 70. So the consumer makes up about twice the inflationary pressure in America than it did in China or does in China And so this idea that the consumer going back to spending and traveling is going to drive substantial oil demand and inflation makes sense.

But I think it makes more sense as a trade than the reality that's going to create inflation. In fact, just consider for example, my rubber band thesis that a lot of companies are willing to provide substantially more goods and services and they have excess capacity which could actually absorb a greater increase in demand. And one of the easiest places you can see this is by looking at the chip sector. You've got companies like Micron Western Digital Uh, the South Korea I can't pronounce this one, but it's like high Nix All of them including Samsung They're all lowering their output because they're seeing massive deflation in in the chip sector.

specifically in memory. Companies like Intel got out of memory companies. uh, like Nvidia have much less exposure to memory, more exposure to Gpus and servers AMD has a little bit more exposure to the PC market, so we might see a hit there when AMD reports. But the point is you, you have a lot of potential excess capacity uh at a lot of companies throughout the world.

We've hired substantially to make sure that when people want to spend, we're able to absorb their spending. so that's something that could put a lid on Chinese inflation. Also considering the fact that Chinese excess savings are only about five hundred dollars per person relative to the excess savings that we had in America After the Covid lockdowns ended of about six thousand dollars per person, that's a massive difference of about 12 times per person of a difference. so a substantially less of a of a of an inflationary.

Catalyst I Believe in China but it's something that individuals are still concerned about. And look, Spain's missed. To the upside is a red flag. On top of that, you also have what some folks call The Tinderbox time bomb that we might face the: Hedge Find a hedge fund advisor excuse me? Uh, who? uh advised the author of the book The Back Black Swan uh Naseem Taleb He suggests that uh, that? Uh, So in other words, the author who advises hedge funds Let's get that clear.

Uh, and author of the book of The Black Swan is providing a substantial warning that it's not just a second chapter of inflation that could really hurt uh, even if it's just sort of temporary misses to the upside, but it's also that ballooning debts across Global markets could end up wreaking havoc on our markets. and He suggests that the greatest Tinderbox time bomb in financial history is all of the debt that countries like the United States have accumulated through the covet pandemic. and He suggests that if the credit bubble pops because maybe we hit a second wave of inflation and then the credit bubble pops, we could end up seeing a financial crisis substantially worse than the Great Depression of the late 1920s that we are going to see the most catastrophic market failure that anyone has ever in their lifetimes read about And hen his warning, he says Corrections were once natural and healthy in economies, but now a correction of the magnitude of the debt cycle correction that we need he argues could create or become a quote contagious Inferno capable of destroying the system entirely that the world is just too leveraged today, that the debt construct is just too big. That's scary.

Those are some scary phrases and scary words. So this is why this sort of second phase or second wave of inflation is leaving a lot of people very nervous. Even Paul Krugman Who believes that disinflation is coming? He's a New York Times writer. A lot of people don't like him.

A lot of people do like him. He's an economist. He says that Look, even though his base case is inflation coming down, there could be a self-denying prophecy that could end up reigniting inflation. Now, this is really weird because usually we hear the word self-fulfilling prophecy is usually what we hear, but a self-denying prophecy is basically one where we say look, it is not a problem, Uh, to to worry about inflation because inflation's already trending down.

There won't be a second wave of inflation. Michael Burry will be wrong and look. Too many Companies like Whole Foods Procter Gamble Johnson and Johnson a Whirlpool are all suggesting that we should see disinflation by the second half of 2023. So we're good.

Well, Paul Krugman says that if ultimately we deny the potential for inflation, then we could reignite inflation by just starting to spend again and not worry that the Federal Reserve is going to crimp us. Uh, and and to crimp inflation out. And this is why I Think the Federal Reserve is going to be forced to keep sort of that hard face on to make sure that inflation doesn't get out of control and financial conditions do remain at least somewhat tight to prevent inflation from reigniting. So far though, the data suggests that a lot of this could just be fear, uncertainty, and doubt, consider again, retail purchases have fallen for three out of the four last months spending on Services rent haircuts and the bulk of this sort of services style inflation was flat in December.

Now what we also see is that really consumers, especially poorer ones are being forced to pull back on overall spending as well, not just services inflatia or Services based uh spending. We also know uh, that uh. Ultimately, as unemployment starts Rising the number of spending we expect to see should plummet Uh. And that is what we are also seeing as a potential Catalyst for the bottom of the market.

Now this is an interesting one. There's an argument that industrial Layoffs This is a report put together by Rbc's Head of Equity Research as reported via Barons Uh. This report by RBC suggests that one of the ways that we can determine where the bottom of the market is is when we look at a spike in industrial layoffs. Now, this is interesting because Dow Chemicals and 3M just reported that they're both starting to trim their workforces Dow Chemicals just reported 2 000 layoffs and Rbc's Head of Equity Research suggests that industrial layoffs are one of the best indicators we can pay attention to to suggest that a recession is either already here or around the corner.

And generally we know this: stocks tends to tend to bottom when the recession begins because stocks tend to pull us out of a recession. In fact, what they've done is they've looked at the last two recessions and they suggested that ignoring coven they suggesting that they suggested that the.com bubble low of the stock market coincided with a peak in industrial job losses. They also suggested that the Great Recession low came right after a peak in industrial job losses, and they see that happening now as well. So personally trying to put all of this together, you've got hawkish.

Folks At the FED you've got bearish. Folks at the FED you've got Leo Brainard suggesting Look, there are lagging effects we have to pay attention to. We've probably got to cut here eventually. or at least pause.

Bloomberg on their front page suggests that the FED points towards a pause in May once hikes have time to sink in, which would basically price in 25 basis points for February that's pretty much guaranteed for tomorrow and another 25 basis point hike potentially in March. But let's try to put all of this information together because all of this is obviously spawned by yes, an ECI report that has turned indices positive, which is fantastic. But what do we want to pay attention to as investors? Well, in my opinion, to string all of this data, we just got on inflation together. My strong opinion is that the best thing we can do is be patient.

Be very, very patient because I believe we are going through a Nike Swoosh style recovery uh in the stock market. I Do not believe we are getting a V-shaped recovery like we got after the covet pandemic. I Think we are going to go through a Nike Swoosh very slow and steady recovery in this market and I believe that we are already off the bottom. However, I believe there are going to be plenty of opportunities in these sort of oscillations here.

Oscillation. Whatever. These oscillations to basically buy the dip on individual companies that you're trying to increase your exposure to. My favorite kind of companies to increase my exposure to are companies that I believe have long-term Innovative Pricing Power Pricing Power Uh being defined as something that over the next decade, certainly over the next five years have the ability to sell Hardware at higher margins to sell software at higher margins.

However, companies that are also limited to being able to uh, uh or limiting myself to companies that also have the ability to survive during a recessionary environment. So companies that have high free cash flow, right low debt relative to the cash they have and sort of these, Innovative plays whether they are Asml, a company that has a 90 market share Stranglehold on the advanced chip manufacturing equipment sector, whether it's uh, potentially uh, a bet on Taiwan semiconductors and even maybe a hedge of Intel against Taiwan semiconductors Yes, I know Intel which got out of the memory chip business a few years ago and their valuation is plummeted because their their earnings have been terrible. Intel's roadmap for actually competing under the chips act with massive subsidies to actually buy equipment from Taiwan semiconductors and manufacture it as their own manufacturing a facility or within their own manufacturing facilities in the United States is actually very impressive. Very impressive roadmap and they probably will be a substantial competitor Taiwan Semiconductors in the future, but these are sort of Chip companies in my opinion.

Substantial pricing power specific specifically amongst Taiwan Semiconductors, uh, Nvidia and Asml a phenomenal pricing power. You could look at a company like Tesla to say relative to being within their own industry, highest amount of pricing power for vehicles and then the potential software throughput. One of the big dangers of only investing in software though is that you end up with companies that are losing money or free cash flow. Negative which I think is a very dangerous investment to make during a recession, especially during what I think will be very sort of bumpy road out of here.

So so my belief is. Oh and then of course you have the internet energy sector which would be companies like Enface I think dip opportunities or opportunities to add even though they could be in a downward trajectory which which I've been calling for for over a year that as residential spending declines these companies will probably see declines. but companies like Solar Edge or end Phase which have very very high margins on their inverter businesses but are also part of a highly subsidized industry uh, are part of the green energy Trend uh and have high margin and have pricing power for their products. These are in my opinion, companies that we want to be paying attention to now.

I Obviously am not here to give you personal financial advice for your portfolio even though I am a licensed financial advisor and I run an actively made a Gtf and I sell programs on building your wealth and uh, sort of fundamental analysis, technical analysis, whatever. Uh, my thesis is that through this, fear, all of this fear, uncertainty, and doubt that will probably continue for the first half of 2023. I Think the stock market is poised to slowly Trend up with a lot of sort of like trepidation in the meantime. So I think there'll be plenty of opportunity to sort of add to positions slowly.

I Don't think you have to be very aggressive and I also don't think that you want to be all cash right now I think you? you should have probably already started allocating. Uh, but I I Don't think we're in sort of an environment where it makes sense to YOLO margin I Don't think we're anywhere close to YOLO yoloing margin. Uh, as much as I'd like to go back to those 20 20 days, I would personally advocate for staying away from yoloing margin. Anyway, those are my thoughts on inflation, the Employment Cost Index Report, and again very clear expectation that the Federal Reserve is going 20 or is going for a 25 BPI tomorrow.

But the most important thing is going to be that Outlook obviously I will be covering it live. So I encourage you to be here When I cover the Fomc meeting Live. we'll be going live at 11 Pacific Time for the statement where we'll get the Uh 25 BP hike and then we will be going. We'll I'll continue to be live for the press conference which begins at 11 30 which is where Jerome Powell will provide his remarks so hope to see you there.