July 3rd Market Update and forecast for the coming week

Hello AR Team! Well it was a short trading day but a lot of news hit the wires. The ECB or European Central Bank did announce they raised their short term rate similar to our federal funds rate to 4.25%. Our FFR is only 2% right now so the simple decision for an investor is to I invest for a guaranteed return at 4.25% or at 2.0%, not a hard decision, hence the reason for the value of the dollar not to like this news and we can expect to see oil prices jump come Monday. Today they traded as high as $146 a barrel, setting a new record but did retreat before close to $144. Also the Jobs report hit the wires and initial jobless claims were at 404,000, the 2nd highest reading in 3 years. Also, the unemployment numbers were at 5.5%, a 4-yr high. There is an interesting dynamic called the "birth-death ratio" that I discuss in the video that makes job "growth" an interesting calculation. Click to download