As the financial markets enter what I expect to be a rather disruptive completion to the recent speculative half-cycle, it will be helpful for investors to consider certain propositions that are readily available from history, rather than insisting on re-learning them the hard way.
Employment data is the last to know
Proposition: Risk-sensitive assets and confidence measures generally precede economic shifts; production, consumption and income measures are coincident with broad economic activity; and labor market measures lag the economy. The unemployment rate is the single most lagging economic indicator available.
I'll begin by noting that