Welcome to the weekend, fellow traders. While Friday may have been fairly tame on the news and market-action fronts, the biggest news of the day was pretty big - the Federal Reserve's take on the U.S. jobs market at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, economic symposium was less than enthusiastic. Investors interpreted as a way of saying rates aren't going to be rising in the immediate future. I'm not surprised. We mentioned to you in yesterday's newsletter the market didn't truly see any major rate hikes on the way, and Yellen pretty much confirmed it today. Anyway, what we thought was pretty interesting about the Fed's basic assessment wasn't that the job market still wasn't all that great; we knew that already. What was interesting is how some of the obscure numbers she cited were the same obscure numbers we serve up to you guys every month when the unemployment data comes out. One of the key data sets we keep tabs on is the degree of participation in the labor force, aka the labor force participation rate. Today is the first time in a long time I can recall anyone else caring about it, and more than that, it's the first time in a long time I can recall anyone (other than myself) suggesting we can't just chalk up the multi-decade low participation rate to a bunch of baby-boomers retiring. While Yellen didn't have a guess as to how much of the weak participation rate we can attribute to soft employment demand, she seemed confident it was at least part of the issue. Something else Yellen mentioned - almost in passing - was the possibility of "pent-up wage deflation." It was a risk more than a forecast, but against a backdrop where some minimum wage workers are demanding and often getting higher pay rates, the possibility of falling wages points to a dangerous structural and cyclical issue that isn't showing up in the primary employment data. In any case, here's our usual chart of the whole employment picture (with participation rates and employment rates) just so you know where we stand. As you can see, both are still at multi-year lows, which means there's room for growth. Until both the participation rate and the employment rate start to grow the labor market may be even less compelling than we were first thinking... not that we were thinking all that optimistically to begin with. Janet Yellen seems to agree, and is far more worried about getting more folks back to work at good jobs than she's worried about the possibility of inflation at some point in the foreseeable future. You also get the feeling she's well aware that monetary policy is an ever-changing art rather than a science, and seems hesitant to commit to a "we'll raise rates when and if" stance. Investors may superficially hate it, but in the long run it's better for everyone since it keeps stock prices honest and respectful of risks as well as rewards. Whatever Happened to Copper (and Aluminum)? My apologies for not keeping closer tabs on my modestly bullish call on aluminum and my decidedly bullish call on copper from June 18th. The schedule has just been wildly hectic lately, and I haven't had much time or room to squeeze them into the newsletter. I'm going to make time and room today. First and foremost (and despite the recent lull from copper), yes, we're still bullish on both metals. I'll confess to you it was a little nerve-racking to ride out copper's drop in price a couple of weeks ago. I think the base metal saw a low of $3.11 per pound. The selling seems to be over, however, and a new uptrend is forming. I'm going to assume the recent plunge is close to being a carbon copy of the one we saw in May, which ultimately resulted in higher highs. That higher high should pretty much seal the deal on the bigger-picture recovery. You can also see how in the meantime, copper availability - the amount sitting in warehouses - hit a multi-year low. One could make the argument the reason copper is so unavailable is because nobody's buying it, and haven't bought it in years. I'm going to take the conventional path though, and assume this lack of supply and even just a modest increase in demand is going to result in much higher copper prices before supplies are readily available again. The real winner between the two metals has been aluminum. I figured it would do reasonably well when it broke to higher highs in June, but WOW! I didn't think it would progress this well or this quickly. Let's take it at face value though, because as much as a lack of a supply should be good for copper, there's even less relative availability for aluminum. Although we don't have a trade on copper or aluminum - yet - it's not like you can't make the play on your own. Your best bet on copper is probably one of the commodity-based ETFs, but for aluminum, you'll likely be better served by one of the industry's miners or suppliers. If you're not sure you want to take the plunge, this might help - if you're one of the people that believes the U.S. is really going to put up double-digit earnings growth over the coming four quarters, then a stake in either or both of these basic materials should probably be part of your mix. If we're going to grow and spend like that (here and abroad), basic materials are going to be one of the lynchpins of those expenditures. Side note: Though we abandoned our semi-related bullish call on coal several weeks ago, we never abandoned the premise. Though it's got a long way to go before we are willing to trade it again, coal is slowly making its way back on our radar. We'll talk more about it when the time comes. Expect the Unexpected Don't worry - we're not going to repeat the story we've already told several times this week about the broad market. You know stocks are feeling their way around at new-high levels, and though the break past prior ceilings is compelling, we're hardly "home free." Instead we'd rather remind you of something we mentioned to you a couple of times over the past month or so, giving full credit to where we poached the idea - our sister publication, the Elite Opportunity. I'm paraphrasing John Monroe's words here, but nothing is going to be lost in translation. In fact, I'd go as far as to say there's going to be something added in the translation, as I'm just going to come out and say it. Here goes. The ceilings you think the market is supposed to hit before rolling over aren't actually the most likely ceilings. The actual highs are apt to be just a bit above the ceilings that superficially make the most sense. Why is that? Because the market makes a point of frustrating as many people as it can most of the time. By moving just beyond key technical lines in the sand, stocks fool a bunch of unsuspecting people into thinking they're going to break out, and then POW! The rug gets pulled out from underneath them. I've seen it too many times in my life to not say something to you about it now. If you think I'm explicitly talking about the S&P 500's approach toward 2000, you're right. I've got this nagging feeling the S&P 500 is going to float just a little beyond 2000 to let people think everything is just fine, and then end up reversing course, sending traders scrambling. It all jives with some of the other ideas we've presented to you in recent newsletters. One of those ideas is how the breakout from earlier in the week was likely to fan some bullish flames (though not too many). Another was the historical data telling us August and September are statistically bearish months for the market. That's all we're going to say about the matter right now, as anything else we could add to the discussion isn't new. We'll just close the day and the week out by saying stocks remain in a funky no-man's land, and trading is still a day-to-day exercise. By the way, with little else going on this weekend, why not use the time to explore everything the Elite Opportunity has to offer? The explanation about how the market likes to toy with people was just one of about a dozen great insights John Monroe has doled out over the past month or so. I love how he combines good trading lessons with actual market calls and stock picks, letting subscribers learn while they earn. Your free two-week trail to the service gives you access to all the EO newsletter archives, which you can explore this weekend to get a feel for just how valuable his newsletter is. Here's how, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/