Vacancies soared to the highest in 3 months

JOIN OUR LIVE SESSIONS! Our LIVE session starts when the big institutions and elite traders do before the opening bell. We'll look at real-time dark pool data as the market movers position themselves for the trading day in secret off-market exchanges. [JOIN OUR LIVE TRADING SESSION @ 6am PT / 9am ET]( [Shadow] Hello investor, Yesterday’s JOLTS data showed vacancies at US employers soared unexpectedly to 10.1 million in April to the highest in three months. Meaning? The central bank has more room to hike rates. Sure enough, traders boosted the odds of a rate hike in June to more than 70% probability. The yield on the two-year Treasury jumped, indicating an expectation for the rates to increase. Where are the job openings at? The biggest advance was in retail trade, health care and transportation and warehousing. They showed the difference in certain sectors. White-collar industries like technology and banking laid off massive numbers of workers, but other industries are still struggling to fill in open positions. (Source: Bloomberg) Stuart Paul, Bloomberg economist, said the recent jump is likely to be “temporary.” Other data points showed a cooling labor market, so the number may come down in the next reading. - “We expect the jump in job openings to prove temporary, as other indicators show the labor market slowly cooling. That said, the April job-openings data mean the Fed likely will continue leaning against the labor market to sustainably achieve its 2% long-run average inflation target,” said Stuart Paul, Bloomberg economist. The popular gauge of the labor market is the ratio of openings to unemployed people. It jumped to 1.8 in April – the highest level in three months. The pre-pandemic level was about 1.2. Regardless, Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson and Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said yesterday that they endorse a pause to assess the impact of previous hikes on the economy. “I think we can take a bit of a skip for a meeting,” said Harker. But Harker said this Friday’s all-important payrolls report could change his mind before the central bank meets on June 13-14.a Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker (Photo: CNBC) The Safest Double-Digit Annual Return You Can Find Anywhere Today’s Stock Pick: Norfolk Southern ([NSC]( The first railroad charter in North America was granted to Stevens in 1815, and the first fourteen miles track was opened in 1830. So, the railroad industry is old. 192 years old, to be exact. And its longevity as a profitable industry is nothing short of remarkable. America’s first practical steam locomotive in 1825 (Photo: 150 Stevens) To this day, there’s no more efficient way to carry large and heavy loads across the country than using the train. Trucks can only carry one container. Maybe two, at most. Freights can’t carry heavy loads. Trains can carry a 16-mile-long carload, making it insanely cheap to ship items. Yes, Norfolk Southern had a public relations nightmare when its train derailed in Ohio while carrying hazardous materials. That was a tragedy. The incident is still under investigation, but the company still has very solid business prospects. After all, the next decade will continue to be profitable for the industry. But Warren Buffett disagrees. He thinks it’d continue for another century, writing in his recent shareholder letter, “I'll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.” Norfolk Southern is a perfect company to invest in this ageless industry. In fact, the company announced a whopping $10 billion repurchase program, which represents… …21% of NSC's current market cap of $47.3B! It spent $163 million in the recent quarter alone to repurchase shares while returning $307 million through dividends. Money-making business: The biggest lure for Norfolk Southern is its ability to increase revenue while keeping costs low. For the full year of 2021, revenues improved 14%... while… operating expenses only climbed by 6%. That’s huge operating leverage. And its operating ratio improved by 4.3% from the adjusted full-year 2020 results – a sixth consecutive year of improvement. How did they do it? Two things: (1) train weight, and (2) train length. Both metrics grew by 20%+. Therefore, a train can carry even more loads per trip: The company chose not to update its Productivity Journey in 2022, but you can see the overall trend in the graph below: (Source: Norfolk Southern) A “secret” software business that could be a huge growth catalyst: The pandemic transformed how CEOs approach supply chains. They now prefer the certainty of supply and locating inventory closer to customers. It means more demand for freights within the country. That’s just icing on the cake for an industry that would do wonderful even without this boosted demand. Norfolk Southern developed an innovative platform, which is called “Zillow-like,” that allows customers to search for rail and transload facilities on the map. This way, CEOs can make decisions about where to build factories or choose suppliers. (Source: Norfolk Southern) Solid year ahead: Norfolk Southern expects total revenue to be comparable to 2022. This may not sound much, but that’s the beauty of the industry. Norfolk Southern’s ROEs usually hover around the 20% level, which allows it to return cash to shareholders. We’ve touched on the new share buyback program. Norfolk Southern already shrank its shares outstanding from 372 million to 228 million since 2010: Quarterly shares outstanding since 1Q 2010 (Source: MacroTrends) For the year of 2022, NSC distributed $4.28 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. That was about 9% of the stock’s current market cap. So, you’ve got a strong shareholder return purely through dividends and share buybacks. Any earnings growth would be an “icing on the cake” on this shareholder return. Let’s imagine that the company posts an average annual earnings growth of 3%, that would take us to a 12% return or more. In other words, NSC doesn’t need to perform a miracle to deliver rock-solid returns. Bottom line: Norfolk Southern is as safe as any stock you can find. Its business model is century-old and, according to Warren Buffett, it will remain profitable for another century. Your annual returns can be in the double-digits range with very, very, very small risk. Consider this stock for your defensive allocation. FREE LIVE TRADING SESSIONS & TRAINING USING THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE DARK POOL MONITOR AVAILABLE TO THE RETAIL INVESTOR Join our LIVE Trading Sessions throughout the day where we will focus on how you can learn to master the markets through the use of advanced algorithms and AI to trade like the institutions. BEFORE THE BELL Starts 6am PT / 9am ET Our newest LIVE session starts when the big institutions and elite traders do, well before the market opens. We'll look at realtime dark pool data as the market movers position themselves for the tra ding day in the secret off market exchanges. LIVE TRADING SESSION Starts 8am PT / 11am ET Take advantage of Trade Algo's proprietary advanced algorithms for anticipating big market swings in our daily LIVE trading session. Trade Algo's Senior Analyst Luke Russell will walk you through the key tools and strategies that the institutional investors and top traders use to profit from high volatility in the market. THE FINAL HOUR Starts Noon PT / 3pm ET According to Wall Street Journal approximately 20% of the trading volume happens at the last 30 minutes of the day. Institutions make the majority of these trades in private dark pool exchanges -- away from the public’s eyes. The timing happens for two reasons: 1) Index funds make their trades to mimic the closing price of a stock. 2) Billionaires trade near the end of the day because they anticipate major news that will be released during after-hours. Because they trade in dark pools, the public doesn’t know about these trades until one day later. We’ve consistently spotted the correlation between a spike in dark pool volume at the end of the day and the next day’s price movement. In the Golden Hour we will identify and analyze these movements so you can trade with confidence. CATCH THE SPARK Starts 4pm PT / 7pm ET Catch The Spark is led by trading expert Luke Russell, starting at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. Open to all this session is a recap of the day and a prep for the next trading day with an emphasis on identifying and examining "spark" orders, those large institutional trades taking place behind closed doors in off-market exchanges, that drive stock movement. Bring the stock or options trade you've been waiting to make and we'll show you the information the hedge-funds, big institutions and top traders use to evaluate and time the trade. [REGISTER NOW! IT'S FREE]( OR [SCHEDULE A LIVE ONE-ON-ONE DEMO!](       © All Rights Reserved, Trade Alliance [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Preferences](