Fisher Investments’ Founder, Ken Fisher, Debunks: “High Unemployment Is a Killer”

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실업률은 후행지표라 주식 방향을 알려주지 않는다. 경기침체 후반 실업률이 치솟을 때 주가는 이미 오르는 경우가 많고, 확장 초기에는 고용 회복기에 실업률이 오히려 상승한다. 실업률 상승을 주식 공포의 신호로 보는 통념은 틀렸다는 취지의 'Debunkery' 시리즈 강의.

다듬은 글

※ 자동 자막 원문(다듬기 전)

01. As you look forward and there's always all this hype, and particularly this year in a midterm election year, there'll be a lot of discussion about unemployment and employment numbers and job numbers, that it actually is a lagging indicator. It doesn't tell you much of anything about what will happen to stocks.

02. So most months, I cover a little short chapter out of my Debunkery book that's broken down into little short chapters that take something that people think to be true and show you why it's not true. Hence the title Debunkery. And this month, I'm going to go to Bunk 34, which is that unemployment is a useful tool for being afraid of stocks.

03. Now, the way most people think about that is you're sitting there calmly minding your own business and going about what you do, and in comes the monthly report on unemployment, and it goes up and you say, boy, that's got to be bad. I'm just going to tell you, for all intents and purposes, as it relates to investing, which is what I talk about, not other stuff, it's superfluous.

04. A move in unemployment up or down is not really a useful indicator in the way people think it is. Unemployment, typically as it goes up, has more often than not, although it's not a reliable indicator, been a bullish thing, not a bearish thing, and Debunkery shows you lots of examples of that. Why? Well, in the most simple sense, it has always been true that the stock market is a leading indicator.

05. It goes down before the economy goes down and it starts going up before the economy starts going up. But employment numbers are a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator. So in reality, stocks go down, a recession starts, I mean a bear market goes down, in the latter part of that, people recognize it's a recession.

06. Businesses, which have been holding off on layoffs because it's not actually good or comfortable or easy for firms to lay off people in mass, at a later date they're going to need to hire them back, and that's a very expensive process to lay off and then hire back. Firms are reluctant to do that. They'll cut inventories, they'll find other ways to cut costs and layoffs are a last resort.

07. Late in the recession, layoffs are coming hard and heavy. Unemployment's going through the roof. But late in a recession, before it turns around and goes up, and again, you know, 100% history of this, late in a recession and before the economy starts going up, the stock market is rising, and therefore it's rising while unemployment's going through the roof.

08. Now, when you get later into the business cycle and you've had a long expansion going on, you actually get fairly stable unemployment numbers that fall slightly. But it's important to remember the difference, which the chapter goes into, on the difference between unemployment and employment. Employment numbers are the number of people working.

09. Who has jobs? Unemployment is not calculated that way. It's not the number of people that don't have jobs of working age. It's the number of people looking for a job, divided by the number of people that have a job and are looking for a job. So early in an economic expansion, firms are still reluctant to hire.

10. They're not sure it's real. They're not sure it's not going to turn around and go back down. They've done their layoffs, they don't want to have to go through that again, and so they're holding off. And when they finally get to the point where they have enough confidence in the economy to start hiring again, and they start hiring again, all those people that don't have jobs that would like one, start seeing that and come out of the woodwork to start looking.

11. And when more are looking relative to those that have and are looking at that stage, you actually see unemployment going up even more while employment is going up. A point that's kind of counterintuitively backwards to the way most people think. And then finally, you get to the point where people say, ah there's not a lot more jobs that are available, all the easy jobs have been taken, I'm going to quit looking, I'm giving up, I'm giving up hope, I'm going to go sit on the back porch and, and, and daydream.

12. That actually helped make unemployment fall. Because when people stop looking, that makes unemployment go down. The data behind all of this, in the longer term, not the recent, because the book's not brand new, all of the long-term history of this is overwhelming and is covered in four pages, including visuals showing unemployment against the stock market and against economic recession and expansion.

13. So I encourage you to think about the fact that as you look forward and there's always all this hype, and particularly this year in a midterm election year, there will be a lot of discussion about unemployment and employment numbers and job numbers, that it actually is a lagging indicator. It doesn't tell you much of anything about what will happen to stocks, or bonds, and therefore is not a useful indicator in the ways that people commonly apply it, and that you'll commonly hear about it through the news.

14. Thank you for listening to me. Next month, I hope to be back to you with another bunk to cover out of the book Debunkery. Thank you, I look forward to seeing you then. .