| Friday's Headlines 1. US markets post strong gains despite historic job losses 2. US payrolls fall by 20.5 million in April as unemployment spikes to 14.7% 3. Where is the money flowing? 4. How have you been behaving? Reader survey results below 5. What to expect next week Markets Closed
Year-to-Date
 Image credit: stevecoleimages/Getty
Markets Today Investors proved unflappable yet again, this time in the face of historically bad economic news as 20.5 million jobs were lost in the month of April. The unemployment rate spiked up to 14.7% as companies laid off workers in droves. We knew the numbers would be bad. They were, but there is hope that we are seeing the worst it can get.
All sectors of the market rallied throughout the day to post its first weekly gain in three. But the momentum has clearly been in favor of stocks, even though a record amount of money is piling up in cash and money market accounts over the past several weeks. The bounce back has been swift, but maybe too swift for some investors who are wondering how sustainable it will be.
I get it. The S&P 500 has risen more than 30% from its virus low and is just 13.6% away from its record high. The Nasdaq Composite is more than 35% off its lows and is now up 1.6% for 2020. At one point, the Nasdaq was down more than 25% year to date.
The stock market and the economy are going their own way.
Reality Check: This is what the runway at the Kansas City airport looks like today. Planes aren't normally parallel parked like that.
photo courtesy: Champ Grossman  Headlines:
 April's Historic Month of Job Losses The April U.S. non-farm payrolls report revealed a historic 20.5 million job loss as the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to lay off workers in historic waves. The unemployment rate spiked to 14.7%, but that barely captures the depth of the loss of jobs, wages, and hours worked across industries. The 20.5 million job losses were by far the most in the history of the U.S. labor market.
The services sector of the economy, which includes leisure and hospitality, among other businesses that deal face-to-face with consumers, lost 7.7 million jobs due to stay-at-home policies. That sector will also be the last to recover, given social distancing restrictions still fully or partially in place around the country.
The labor force participation rate, which measures the economy's active workforce, decreased by 2.5% to 60.2%, the lowest rate since 1973. The decline in full-time workers was also staggering. The number of people who usually work full-time declined by 15 million, while part-time workers declined by 7.4 million, according to the Labor Dept. The "real" unemployment rate, which includes workers not looking for jobs and the underemployed, climbed to 22.8%.
There Was Some Good News... The good news, and there is a little bit of it, is that most newly unemployed workers expect their situation to be temporary, according to the Labor Dept. If April represents the high-water mark for layoffs, and we are able to stop the damage from seeping too heavily into other segments of the economy, there is a real possibility of many of these jobs returning when a recovery kicks in.
For a small business or company, it's easier to hire back workers you laid off "temporarily," as you don't need to do a job search and a lengthy interview process.  Where Is the Money Flowing? The equity markets continue to rally, and it has been broad-based across sectors for the better part of two weeks. It hasn't just been tech stocks leading the market gains, either. Real estate and energy have benefitted from the rising tide.
Still, more money continued to flow out of the stock market than into it.
 How Have You Been Behaving? Turns out, our readers have also been getting a bit cautious of late. That remarkable run for stocks over the past six weeks may have given us some pause.
We are starting to comb through the results of the survey we did with you last month, and here is a very high-level look at how your approach has changed.
More experienced investors with larger portfolios are getting more cautious and shifting to cash, fixed income, and blue chips. You youngsters out there continue to play it risky.
More to come on this. What to Expect Next Week: Here's a look at how different asset classes have been performing:  Here's a list of economic events for the week ahead:
Monday, May 11th:
Tuesday, May 12th:
Wednesday, May 13th:
Thursday, May 14th:
Friday, May 15th:
U.S. Retail Sales and Consumer Sentiment
JOLTs While the detailed U.S. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for April won't be out for another month, the one for March will be released on Friday, May 15th. Although the quarantine only hit towards the end of March, and it isn't perfectly applicable to our current situation, it should give some hints as to what the labor turnover and hiring has been like as a result of the pandemic.
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(chart courtesy YCHARTS)  Shares of Noble Energy are up by over 13% after the oil company posted adjusted first-quarter net income results that beat estimates, in addition to announcing several initiatives to cut costs while oil prices remain low. News Corp's stock price rose more than 13% amid the mass media company reporting a higher-than-anticipated Q3 bottom line. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch will also be giving up his bonus for the fiscal year to help save money.  Although Motorola Solutions' Q1 earnings managed to beat estimates, its shares are still down by nearly 3.5% following the telecommunications provider withdrawing its 2020 guidance. Cognizant Technology Solutions' stock price fell by almost 3% due to the expectation that damages caused by a ransomware attack will impact the IT services provider's performance for the rest of the year. Word of the Day The U-6 (Unemployment) RateThe U-6 rate is the unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers who have quit looking for a job and part-time workers who are seeking full-time employment. The U-6 rate is considered by many economists to be the most revealing measure of a country's unemployment situation since it covers the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed, underemployed and discouraged.  photo courtesy A. Kerr
Today in History May 8th, 1929: John Clifton Bogle, future founder of the Vanguard Group of Investment Cos., is born in Montclair, N.J., to homemaker Josephine Hipkins Bogle and William Yates Bogle, Jr., a manufacturing executive and former aviator. Commonly referred to as "Jack," Bogle revolutionized the mutual fund world by creating index investing, which allows investors to buy mutual funds that track the broader market.
I had the good fortune of meeting and interviewing him several times before he died in 2019. He was an absolute gem of a person.
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Friday, May 8, 2020
Unflappable
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