Seaport策略师：强劲就业数据推高美联储9月加息概率

With us now, we've got Jonathan Golub. He's managing director and chief equity strategist at Seaport Research Partners. Alright. We were talking before we came on. This is... You said the the Fed's gonna do its job. You think that the markets are correct? Well, it's about fifty fifty right now. Markets are betting whether or they're gonna hike, but you're you're foreseeing a hike after this jobs report. Yeah. And first of all, I I think the the jobs report was even better than we're stating just with the payroll numbers.

I mean, you brought in a whole bunch of new workers. You you adjusted up the prior period numbers. I mean, this was a gangbuster report, and it it reaffirmed what we already know is that the economy is really quite quite robust. And so the market is correctly assuming that the Fed is going to raise rates. Walsh told us that if things look strong, that he's inclined to raise rates. And and I think that that's what the market's, expecting.

And so you ask what kind... What would the market do if it... That comes to, you know, fruition? Nothing because it only responds when it's surprised, and it won't be surprised. So the the president feels very strongly about this issue. Right? And he he made the case yesterday that this was basically a sign of a strong economy and a strong social. Yeah. Exactly. And it's... And he's true social as he normally does and and made a case for for why the Fed should actually cut interest rates.

And the vice president did the same thing the day before. And he has obviously put in Walsh as the new Fed chair, but the pressure is on. Will that have any impact, do you think? Well, you know, when you when you study markets, it's it's a lot about incentives. So does the president have an incentive for lower interest rates as we move into the midterms? Sure. Does have an incentive to be sensitive to rising economic demands.

Have. Also... Yes. And so, yeah, so I I understand why the president is is pushing back, and it's not irrational, and it's not unexpected. And, therefore, it'll it'll keep you guys busy with with news headlines and conversation, but but we could save the time. It... The... They're likely to move when the president will yell, and it won't matter. The other thing I found interesting about this job report was the revision from last month.

It basically erased the loss from next month and revised it to... From last month, excuse me, and revised it to a gain. Is that... I've covered these quite a bit. I don't remember seeing one of those recently. Does that concern you at all that the numbers were that off last month, or it's just... I know August is kind of a hard month in general for these numbers. Well, yeah, I mean, first of all, there's there's all kinds of wacky seasonality things Right.

With, you know, with people getting jobs over the summer. And Also World Cup by a spike in hospitality sector. And teachers go go, you know, in and out, and there's all kinds of things like that. But, no, these numbers get revised. Probably the best way to look at them is, you know, look at them, like, on a three month rolling average. If you look on your Bloomberg terminal on what these numbers look like, they look quite jumpy.

But if you if you smooth them out, you do see a trend. And the trend is... I mean, the most important thing is we're not creating an enormous number of jobs over that, you know, less than last three months. That's because there's not a lot of new people entering the labor force, and we're probably absorbing everybody who wants a job. Is there anything concerning in the report to you or to economists? You know, there...

There's there there are things that I'm concerned about. I mean, first of I'm pretty I'm pretty optimistic. But there are things that I... You know, I'm always concerned about, and this jobs report wasn't one of them. Fair enough. We're also... And we... Nearing the end of earnings season. You said you had a lot to say about that. It was a it was a gangbusters earning season, but maybe not so much. Talk us through what you're what you're saying.

Well... So first of all, earnings grew year over year by about 55%. Just to put perspective, a typical earning season grows year over year by about 9%. So this was... The only time we've ever seen anything like this as far back as we have data is when you're leaving a recession and you're comparing this v shaped bounce when the economy is improving against a really lousy quarter a year ago because we're in the middle of a recession.

So do we know what accounted for that this time around? Well, so a number of things. It was an accounting change, which basically forces these big tech companies to realize the gains on their passive positions in Anthropic or or, you know, or some of these other companies. And as a result, first, that alone was 50... That 55% goes into the low thirties. Oh, wow. That that that was, like, two and a half earning seasons worth of earnings just on this.

And by the way, it's not like... You know, it wasn't the profitability of these companies. It was just the mark to market on what the... Right. Okay. That was one. We have tariff refunds. And, you know, it's it's really hard to know exactly how much that that plays through, but I'm guessing 3% of the number. Now 3% of 55 doesn't sound like a lot, but if a typical earning season is 9%, that's like a third of an earning season you're getting Yeah.

From tariff refunds. There's another issue. Let's say that, Jeff, you're you're you're NVIDIA and and and, Christine, you're you're Meta, and you sell Christine a chip. You realize the revenue on that immediately. But Christina doesn't quite realize the expense because she has to wait until her data center is built, and then they depreciate it over five years. So there's this revenue recognition against expense recognition that normally is kind of a shoulder shrug, but right now is a huge big deal.

And then there's more. Did I get the better deal on that? Or Well, temporarily. I mean, this is, like, girl math only. You got the money. You got the money. You're just you're just not seeing the other side of it. But there's another other things. You normally think that higher oil prices are gonna be a bad thing, but The US is an oil exporter. Yeah. And the energy sector, I think, grew earnings at, like, a 140%. And they're like...

They they may only be four ish percent of the S and P, but a 140% is such a big number that adds. And then there's even more. The bank... No. I mean, like, everything couldn't go, you know, couldn't go better. The banks are doing this enormous amount of lending and and IPOs and all stuff, and they're making gobs of money. And for some reason, the estimates were that that wasn't gonna hap... Like, it wasn't in the numbers.

And I couldn't understand why the estimates weren't higher, and then they put up great numbers. So everything worked in favor of these numbers. Okay. But doesn't any of that worry you? Like, are we... It just seems like a lot of numbers. We say in Washington a lot, if you if you tortures the numbers enough, they will confess. Oh, you don't have to torture these. I mean, you know But were talking about circular credit.

We're talking about private credit crunches. We're talking about, you know, these valuations and how real they are and whether they can really put up profitability to justify what they're going out as an IPO. You don't worry that this is coming for a crash down or a letdown next season or in the future. So I just... I wanna take on two of the things you said. One I think you're underestimating one way and the other you're underestimating the other.

The the valuations are really low, and you can't go... I mean, if if a stock goes up from 10 to 20, its valuation doesn't go up. Its price went up. If the if the earnings went up fourfold, the valuation went down. The the valuation on tech companies is below the long term average now. If there's any