Today's Scoop:

Hey friends, hope it was a good weekend.

Here's what you need to know today...

1. The jobs market is still booming, despite the gloom.

2. Americans amassed record credit card debt over the holidays.

3. Corporate profits aren't falling as much as feared.

S&P 500: 4,111.081Mo: +6% | 1Yr: -8% | 5Yr: +57%

The market continued its drift lower after Friday's surprisingly-good jobs report. A strong economy makes investors worried about inflation.

The jobs market isn't slowing down. The Labor Department on Friday said employers added another 517,000 workers in January, more than double what economists expected. The unemployment rate hit a +53-year low. There's more demand for workers than supply, a sign of an overheating economy, which typically leads to more inflation. Investors want to see hiring cool off. Wages didn't rise as quickly in January, aka lower wage inflation. That's a good sign for avoiding inflation but not great for workers.

Americans added record amounts to their credit cards over the holidays. Stuff costs more than ever, though. Credit card balances are still manageable, with debt back to the same percentage of consumers' incomes as before the pandemic. The NY Fed said delinquencies picked up but are still historically low.

Corporate profits haven't been great, but they have been better than expected. We're halfway through fourth-quarter financial reports, and 70% of companies have reported higher profits than expected, according to Factset.

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• PG&E faces trial for manslaughter over wildfires

• Chevron looks to Algeria for new oil

• Apple iPhone sales sink

• Google weathers an advertising slowdown

• Amazon loses steam in the cloud

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Employment Reports

There are four main reports people watch to understand trends in the labor market.

The main "jobs report" comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first Friday of each month. It highlights the unemployment rate, new jobs added, and wage growth.

The Labor Department also releases the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) each month, but on a one-month lag. That report helps us understand how many open positions there are, how many people quit their jobs, and how many were hired.

There's also a monthly private-sector survey from payroll services company ADP that doesn't include government jobs and the weekly initial unemployment claims (a proxy for layoffs) report from the Labor Department.

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