The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the recent period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as AI and vaccines) and services (such as Zoom calls and Netflix), as well as moving into new markets (clean energy, rare drugs), the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. Consider that U.S. GDP was approximately $1 trillion in 1930 but was almost $30 trillion at the end of 2024. That's growth of 30-times. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 3-times during that time span, to 340 million from 120 million. The delta between GDP growth and population growth has been driven, in large part, by innovation.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

On Friday, we expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to report that U.S employment is growing, albeit amid numerous concerns. Our forecast is for March nonfarm payrolls to rise by 125,000, which would be down from February's report of 151,000 new jobs and the three-month average of 200,000. The March consensus has been fluctuating between 125k and 130k. We expect the unemployment rate in March to tick up to 4.2%, which is still healthy and in line with consensus. We expect that average hours worked to remain at 34.1 hours and growth in average hourly earnings to remain at 4.0%. The median unemployment forecast from Fed governors and bank presidents in the Summary of Economic Projections is now 4.4% for 2025 (up from 4.3% at the time of the December Fed meeting). The 2026 and 2027 estimates are still 4.3%; the long-term estimate is still at 4.2%. Based on the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta jobs calculator, nonfarm payrolls would need to average approximately 113,000 a month to hold the unemployment rate at 4.1% over the next 12 months. If the unemployment rate rises to 4.4% over the next 12 months, consistent with the new estimate from Fed officials, monthly payrolls would average approximately 71,500, according to the Atlanta Fed calculator. Any meaningful uptick in layoffs would start to appear in initial jobless claims, which are reported every Thursday. The current four-week average of 224,000 is well below the 300,000 that might be a recession warning. With many job cuts announced by the federal government and the potential for additional job losses by government contractors and institutions that may lose funding, we will take a close look at our forecasts if the four-week average stays above 250,000 for a few weeks. The services sector is critical to our forecast for continuing GDP growth. Will be watching private service-providing payrolls on Friday as well as the ISM services indices, which will be reported on Thursday.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.