Topley’s Top Ten – February 6, 2020

Author

Matt Topley
February 06, 2020

1.Global Supply of Stocks and Bonds at 20 Year Low.

Investors will face the tightest global supplyof stocks and bonds in a year since 2000, a silver lining for fund managersthat are grappling with the onset of global growth concerns at the start of2020.

That’sbased on calculations from Morgan Stanley strategists who don’t expect a delugeof issuance to be among the problems investors could confront this year.Analysts say too much debt or equity supply can sometimes overwhelm fundmanagers and other institutional investors, weighing on short-term returns.

“Thesupply/technical backdrop in 2020 looks manageable, and is not high on our listof full-year concerns,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a late Friday note.

The global supply of stocks and bonds isthe tightest in 20 years, says Morgan Stanley—Sunny OH.  Marketwatch

2.Small Cap Energy Hits All-Time Lows.

PSCE small cap energy ETF -60%+ from 2018

3.China Small Cap ETF Holds Lows from 2018.

ECNS China ETF doesn’t break to new lows on Coronavirus

4.Private Payrolls Double Estimates.

Private payrolls soar in January, the best monthly gain in nearly 5 years

PUBLISHED WED, FEB 5 20208:15 AM ESTUPDATED WED, FEB 520209:53 AM EST

KEY POINTS

  • Private payrolls rose by 291,000 in January, the best monthsince May 2015, according to ADP and Moody’s Analytics.

  • The report was nearly twice the expected gains.

Thejobs market kicked off 2020 in grand fashion, adding 291,000 in privatepayrolls for the best monthly gain since May 2015, according to a reportWednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics.

Thatwas well above the 150,000 estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones andmore evidence that the U.S. still is a good distance from full employment evenwith the jobless rate at its lowest point in more than 50 years. The total alsowas a sharp gain from the 199,000 in December, which was revised down 3,000 fromthe initial count.

Growthcame across a swath of industries.

Leisureand hospitality led with 96,000 new jobs, but education and health servicesalso contributed 70,000 and professional and business services added 49,000. Onthe goods-producing side, construction rose by 47,000, the best growth sincethe 62,000 added in January 2019, and manufacturing was up 10,000, the biggestmonthly gain since last February.

In all,services added 237,000 positions compared with 54,000 for goods producers.Trade transportation and utilities rose by 8,000, while the information andfinancial activities sectors contributed 2,000 apiece. Natural resources andmining was the sole loser with a drop of 2,000.

Amazon 36,000 Job Openings

As of today, Amazon ($NASDAQ:AMZN) lists36,305 openings on its HR recruiting website. That is not an error: Amazon ishiring more than thirty-six thousand people around the world.

And, as our data shows,Amazon’s hiring pace appears to be accelerating as we head into 2020 and thecompany looks to cover the earth with its e-commerce and service network. 

5-6.Tesla Volume Spikes 1460%…$55B in stock traded Tues….Drops 17% Wed.

Big Short’s Eisman Ends Bet Against‘Cult-Like’ Tesla

FEBRUARY 5, 2020 • CECILE GUTSCHER

SteveEisman, the investor made famous by betting against subprime mortgages beforethe 2008 financial crash, said the recent run-up in Tesla Inc.’s stock isinexplicable and is instead bullish about General Motors Co.

Eisman,whose wagers against the housing market were chronicled in Michael Lewis’s 2010book “The Big Short,” told Bloomberg Television he covered a short againstTesla that he first disclosed in July 2018.

“Look,everybody has a pain threshold,” Eisman told Bloomberg TV’s Tom Keene. “When astock becomes unmoored from valuation because it has certain dynamic growthaspects to it, and has cult-like aspects to it, you have to just walk away.”

Teslafell as much as 5.4% before the start of regular trading Wednesday, aftersurging 36% in two days. The stock has more than doubled already this year.

Eisman,a senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman Group, said the investment firmowns GM, which he called “reality on the ground” relative to the “dream” Teslabulls have: that the company will continue to dominate the electric-vehiclemarket.

GM “usedto be a poorly run company with a terrible balance sheet and terrible products,and today it’s got a great balance sheet, it’s got very good management andit’s no longer in Europe,” said Eisman, who was bullish on the company a yearand a half ago. “It’s really not a car company anymore, it’s really a truckcompany that also sells SUVs very profitably and it has a real division calledCruise which is a real option on autonomous driving.”

GM,which reports earnings and hosts an investor day, rose as much as 0.7% before thestart of regular trading.

Patti Domm CNBC -Bespoke Compares to Past Bubbles

7.Another Look at College Costs.

8.Your Future Is Now

By Cecilia Meis | February3, 2020 | 0 

The term “intuitiveeating” has seen a recent surge in popularity, but it was coined back in 1995,and its roots date back to the early ’70s. The idea is that fad diets, cleansesand fasts aren’t the answer and that, instead, the answer is and always hasbeen within you. The thinking goes that by rebuilding trust with your body anddifferentiating between physical and emotional hunger, you can relearn how toeat when you’re hungry, drink when you’re thirsty and avoid cravings.

It sounds simple enough,but for many people, the emotional relationship with food is a deep-seated andcomplex one. There isn’t a simple answer, but there are tools that can help youbreak the emotional ties and rebuild healthy ones in their place. It will takeconsistency, determination and time—maybe even the rest of your life.

Sound familiar?

Personal development hasbeen called many things. It’s been called too prescriptive, too woo-woo, toovague, too cultish. It’s seen the rise and fall of thousands of motivationalspeakers, authors, so-called experts and coaches. It’s seen negative press andenough bad players touting now-debunked claims that, for a while, society atlarge had a pretty bad taste in its mouth. Yet it persisted. Why?

At its core, personaldevelopment is about changing your mindset in order to improve aspects of youremotional, physical, mental and spiritual state. That is, if you sincerelybelieve that you possess the power to change one or many things about yourlife, there are tools to get you there.

Of course, you mustaccount for the fact that true and lasting change is never going to come from aquick fix. It will require consistency, determination and time—definitely therest of your life.

Much like intuitiveeating, personal development has seen a resurgence in mainstream popularity. Infact, the estimated $10 billion industry is expected to grow another $3 billionto $5 billion in the next four years according to the 2019 U.S. Market for SelfImprovement Products and Services Report. Why?

First, the continuedgrowth of social media means unparalleled access to 7.4 billion people. Those7.4 billion people have access to seemingly endless amounts of content.Something has to resonate.

Second, it’s necessary.Younger generations are reporting unheard-of levels of stress, anxiety anddepression—most of which come from a society that promotes busyness andoverwork. They want control. They want answers.

Third, access and needbreed popularity, which breeds normalcy, which breeds acceptance, which breedscelebration of self-care. The “I did it!” Instagram posts, only increaseawareness, access and popularity, snowballing the cycle.

Finally, perhaps for thefirst time, personal development is truly big enough to be personal. Interesthas shifted from the messenger to the message itself. A mindset of “take whatyou want and leave the rest” reigns supreme.

The result of it all is aclear ultimatum: Work to grow and improve yourself and your skills now and inthe years to come, or be left behind by others, stalled out and static.

The State of Personal Development Watchthis documentary introduction to The New Thought Leaders who can help you reachyour potential. 

Factor 1 / ACCESS

According to the mostrecent numbers released by Pew Research, 72 percent of U.S. adults are activeon at least one social media platform. Most people don’t need to see thatnumber to know it’s true. Many of us can’t or won’t be without our phones formore than an hour. Whether mindlessly scrolling or engaging with social media,it, like any great technological advancement, has the power to harm or heal.

“The changes in technologypresent both fresh opportunities to impact people’s lives and an ever-growingdemand to be discerning with how you spend your time and energy,” personaldevelopment author and speaker Marie Forleo says.

There are more than 4.5million Instagram posts labeled #personaldevelopment. The potential reach for one single videorecorded on a smartphone is virtually boundless.

“Ultimately,

[accessibility]

is a good thing,” Forleo says. “People have the opportunity tounleash their creativity and connect with others. More people means a highervariety of approaches, perspectives, and styles of teachers to choose from.”

But with this access comesa responsibility on both creator and consumer. The consumer is tasked withsifting through thousands of posts that promise life-changing results anddiscerning the helpful from the innocuous from the harmful.

Regardless of the filteredhighlight reels that can be detrimental, social media has become an invaluabletool for personal development. Deeply vulnerable videos, lighthearted yetpainfully relatable memes and cartoon drawings of personal experiences allprovide a mirror with which one person can see themselves reflected and therebysoothe feelings of aloneness. In turn, users get a vote (with their productdollars, likes, saves and shares) on which platforms will grow. This is crucialfor historically underrepresented groups.

“The community gets todecide what’s being heard,” says motivational speaker Jay Shetty. “People arenow going to be able to see people who look like them, sound like them, whohave had the same pain as them, who want the same success as them. They’regoing to see that reflected in the industry.”

In small ways, thecommunity is already bringing about change. Updated Facebook algorithmsprioritize personal above business posts. Instagram began eliminating the likescounter for each post in an effort to combat comparison, which has proven negativeemotional effects on the user. And Pinterest recently rolled out self-helpassistance exercises in partnership with The Stanford Lab for Mental HealthInnovation, Vibrant Emotional Health and the National Suicide PreventionHotline. These include exercises in breathing and mindset shifts, for example.

Factor 2 / NEED

Millennials—perhaps you’veheard of them—matured amid chaos. Now the largest living demographic, they’veseen political divisiveness on nearly every big issue, increasing debt burdens andlong-term economic instability. All of the above play a role in the state ofmillennial mental health in 2020, which is to say not good.

A recent survey conductedby Mind Share Partners, Qualtrics and SAP found that half of U.S. millennialshave quit a job for mental health reasons. This falls in line with a studyreleased by the American Psychological Association, which found that 53 percentof millennials have lost sleep due to stress, and 76 percent of respondentssaid that work is their largest source of stress.

“The world is waking up,” says Gabrielle Bernstein,a New York Times best-selling author and speaker. “People areuncomfortable in the chaos that they’re feeling. It’s like a pressure cookerwe’re living in. People are seeking solutions rather than problems.”

Millennials aren’t afraidto ask for help. In fact, younger generations are more inclined to seek professionalmental care and to talk about it publicly than any prior generation. But whatabout the more nebulous but just as deadly forms of persistent stress? Ongoingstress can affect everything from the endocrine, cardiovascular and nervoussystems.

The current workplaceculture in America rewards overwork and busyness, and condemns rest and play.This culture begins in early education, combated by organizations such as TheChildplay Institute, which works to increase learning through play in schools.It’s exacerbated in college, prompting anti-college movements such as OuterCoast, which is working to overhaul the current definition of higher education.It’s only natural that the culture flows into the workplace, resulting in TheNap Ministry, which works to use rest and recharge as a form of rebellion. Theoverall result of this culture: a persistent and nagging feeling ofnot-enoughness.

“Millennials are reallystruggling with comparison, with judgment, with feeling like they’re behind,with feeling like they’re not getting what they want,” says Lewis Howes, NewYork Times best-selling author and host of the podcast TheSchool of Greatness. “They’re seeking answers.”

The answer was once “domore.” Personal development provides another answer, a thousand answers. Andmillennials are here for it, with 94 percent willing to invest, on average,$300 per month on self-improvement.

“You need to take care ofyourself at a biological, cellular level, if you want to do things like pursueyour passion,” says Tom Bilyeu,founder of Impact Theory. “You simply won’t have the energy to fight throughall the obstacles.”

Factor 3 / THE AGE OFCELEBRATION

Need and accessibilitybreed mainstream popularity, which creates normalcy. Over time, personaldevelopment has persisted through highs and lows to position itself as anintegral part of daily life. Directly or indirectly, we have all become fluentin the language of self-care. The color, shape and frequency of your self-careroutine will look quite different from someone else’s, but the underlying needand celebration of self-care remains constant.

Marianne Williamson, ahousehold name in the personal development industry and author of four NewYork Times best-selling books, built a 2020 presidential campaign on theidea that love and compassion can solve any problem. She is no longer in therunning, but her rise to prominence speaks to the growth of what was once aniche industry.

Even men, who havehistorically struggled with the stigma that self-care isn’t masculine, arejoining the conversation. Actor Terry Crews spoke out about his experience withchildhood sexual abuse. Rapper Kid Cudi talks openly of his history with drugabuse and depression. Howes’ most recent book tackles toxic masculinity.

To say that this is theage of celebration for self-care is to acknowledge that we, as a society, aresick in some way. That’s easier to do with curated Instagram stories of bathbomb “me days” and quite harder to do when the real and lifelong work begins.

For many of theprofessionals trying to reach that audience, it means staying sharp, collaboratingwith other sharp minds and finding new ways to deliver a timeless message.Competition isn’t the point.

“What’s the most importantthing?” Howes says. “That’s helping people live a better life. I don’t want tohold back from any information or any people’s stories that could serve thoseindividuals.”

If this all sounds alittle too naive and a little too ignorant of the $10 billion pot of gold, thenit’s important to remember that many of the biggest names in the industry todayhave found success largely by sharing their own personal development journey.Much of their continued success comes from trying new tactics and reporting theresults with their audience.

Put in other words: It’s abusiness, but it’s the business of humanity. And that’s never going to go away.

“Make me ask newquestions,” Shetty says about his own personal development. “That’s always whatI’m looking for: What can help me ask new questions?”

Some, like Rachel Hollis, NewYork Times best-selling author and founder of The Hollis Co., don’tself-identify in the “personal development” category.

“It’s possible to be knownfor one thing and have the core mission be something so much greater,” saysHollis, whose business started with a cooking blog and has since grown into amillion-dollar media company aimed at providing tools for people to change theirlives.

Factor 4 / PERSONALIZEDDEVELOPMENT

Celebration should not beequated with easy. This isn’t a Field of Dreams story. Theghost of personal development past may have been willing to accept aprescription for happiness or increased confidence or a smaller waistline.Today’s audience has been burned by feel-good promises. They’re open to newideas but hesitant to trust.

Power has shifted from abrand or personality to the consumer. Although people like Howes and Bernsteinhave avid fan bases, it’s easy to become irrelevant when the flow ofinformation is constant. The message, rather than the messenger, reignssupreme. The bigger the industry, the more messages available.

“Experiment. Try ondifferent teachers, approaches and modalities like you’d try on a half dozenshirts at a store,” Forleo says. “See which feels best, which messagesresonate, which leaders align with your values, your style and, mostimportantly, help you create the results you want.”

For those trying to make aname in the industry, success finds those who are willing to take risks andmeet people where they are. Facebook was once the be-all, end-all of socialmedia. Millionaires were born out of once-popular micro-video app Vine. For theconsumer trying to discern between “good” and “bad” content, intuition is key.

“You’ve got to have agoal,” Bilyeu says. “And you’ve got to hold yourself accountable at all timesto, does that advice, when implemented well, actually move me toward my goal?If it does, great. If it doesn’t, then it’s by definition bad, and you need todiscard it.”

** *

Personal development, nomatter how you define it, is woven within the fabric of American society. Butthe message has also been amplified because of a modern need and the power ofsocial media. It’s the teacher struggling with a student who doesn’t want tolearn and finds a video about motivation from Bilyeu. It’s the college dropoutwho feels hopeless and turns to a Facebook live video of Hollis explaining howthe simple act of a morning routine can change your life. It’s the newlyjobless person picking up this magazine in search of ideas for a personalreinvention.

“We want to live in aworld where all 7.4 billion people at least understand what a growth mindsetis. If they choose to reject it, so be it,” Bilyeu says. “But we want it to bethat pervasive.”

The idea of self-care isaccessible, needed and never riper for the taking. Political, social andeconomic issues may evolve, but they have been a fact of life since timeimmemorial. Our responses, our small place in this world and how we choose tolive can be, in many ways, up to us.

Personal development givesthe tools. In the 2020s, take what you need and leave the rest.https://www.success.com/your-future-is-now/