The jobs numbers this week were pretty bad. In both absolute and percentage terms, Thursday's 20% uptick in initial jobless claims was the largest week-over-week increase since March 23, early in the pandemic. The uptick in continued claims was the largest since July 13.
The jobs deterioration comes as Covid-19 case numbers in the US continued to worsen this week. TSA traveler throughput has fallen off somewhat in early December as case counts rise. And to throw in an additional economic risk, Democrats and Republicans in Congress remain deadlocked over what should be in a new stimulus bill.
The one saving grace for this market is that the vaccine rollout begins next week. Hopefully rollout will proceed quickly and case numbers will begin to fall off. Still, I think the market is in a risky place, and we could see a sharp selloff if stimulus negotiations entirely break down. This might be a good place to hedge a bit or sell a little to reduce long exposure to stocks.