January 9

1/9 – Making a call on the economy for 2023 has recently gotten even more difficult, in a good way. U.S. employers added a very impressive 223,000 net new jobs in December. The jobless rate dropped from 3.6% to 3.5%. And, while a number of financial and tech giants have announced large layoffs, most of these companies had staffed-up during the pandemic and are now just trimming back to 2019/2020 levels. Meanwhile, many small and medium-size businesses (like restaurants) are still playing catch-up with labor needs. Wage growth appears to be slowing, which could help the Fed slow the pace of interest rate increases. For consumers, much lower natural gas prices, due to a (so far) warm winter, are combining with lower gasoline prices to help preserve disposable income. More and more analysts are talking about an ideal economic goldilocks scenario of not too hot and not too cold.