We continue to follow our Road to Recovery Playbook for guidance in assessing the market’s bottoming process.

In recent updates, we had indicated that four of the five signals were checked off. We have a sense of the severity of the recession (#2), which now we know has arrived. Analysis of the market’s technicals and investor sentiment (#4) pointed to a “washout” with indiscriminate selling and possible seller exhaustion. And we had the “shock and awe” policy response from lawmakers in Washington and the Federal Reserve (#5) to help restore confidence and cushion the economic blow. As of the l

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly employment report this morning, showing the US jobs market posted its first month-over-month decline in March since September 2010. As seen in the chart below, total nonfarm payrolls fell by 701,000 during the March survey period, a sharp drop-off from what had been a sanguine trend. This ends one of the most impressive streaks of jobs gains in history at 113 months, one that weathered numerous economic shocks along the way.

The leisure and hospitality businesses were hardest hit. Social distancing orders, restaurant and bar closures, and a standstill in travel

Following last week’s more than 10% gain, the S&P 500 Index is tracking toward another weekly loss, its fifth of the last seven. This has many investors wondering if a retest of the lows may be in the cards for US equities. As we explored in our How Markets Bottom post, two of the bear markets we believe show the most similarities to our current one did retest or undercut the lows after the worst of the selling.

“Whether or not we get a retest is an open question,” said LPL Financial Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “But we believe we’ve seen the worst of the selling, and we will be watchin

More than 6 million people filed new claims for unemployment in the week ending March 28. It’s hard to capture what a number like that means. Last week’s 3.3 million new claims was already almost five times the previous high of 695,000, reached in 1982. Economists’ consensus for this morning’s number was 3.8 million, which still would have been about triple the largest weekly increase ever before last week. The 6.6 million new unemployment claims reported today is once again off the charts. But the almost unimaginable second surge doesn’t mean we didn’t understand the costs of efforts to contain the COVID-1