Meta Platforms shocked investors Wednesday with an unusually weak earnings report. Then Thursday, the company lost $250 billion in market cap. What in world is the Meta with Facebook?

Meta Platforms (ticker: FB), which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, stunned financial markets with fourth-quarter results and weak guidance for the March quarter. The company said revenue growth could be as low as 3% in the period, compared to first quarter 2021 when Facebook’s revenue was up 48%. Meta projects first-quarter revenue growth between 3% and 11% from 2021 or $27 billion to $29 billion, is well below consensus estimates of $30 billion.

Meta said in its earnings release, it expects, “continued headwinds from both increased competition for people’s time and a shift of engagement within our apps towards video surfaces like Reels, which monetize at lower rates than Feed and Stories.” The company also noted “macroeconomic challenges like cost...

ADP Nonfarm Private Payrolls missed consensus estimates … by a lot.

The January ADP National Employment Report posted an unexpected 301,000 decline in nonfarm private sector payrolls, the first monthly decline in just over a year. Consensus estimates were for a 210,000 increase in January payrolls.

Making matters worse, the December increase in payrolls was revised down from 807,000 to 776,000, while the November payrolls increased 496,000, revised down from 505,000. ADP suggests the decline was "due to the effect of the Omicron variant."

While the decline was a huge miss, what’s more concerning is the trend. The November and December downward revisions suggest the economy is weakening. It’s too soon to tell whether the trend is a temporary decline, which will improve as the Omicron variant peaks across the country, or if there’s more systemic issues at play.

Keep a close eye on the January Nonfarm Payroll report, if its consistent with the ADP print, could...

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The U.S. Employment situation continued to improve last month, as October Nonfarm payrolls increased 531,000, beating consensus expectations were for a 413,000 improvement. Additionally, the September and August numbers were revised higher, 312,000 up from 194,000 and 483,000 up from 366,000 respectively. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.6%, better than the anticipated 4.7%. Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% meeting expectations, after a .6% increase in September. By nearly every measure the October print was a welcomed surprise.

One area, which continues to be a cause for concern, is the labor force participation rate, which remained constant at 61.6%, below the January 2020 high of 63.4%. Despite a steady increase in hourly earnings and the elimination of much of the pandemic stimulus, people have still not returned to work, as many economists anticipated. There’s much speculation about the causes of this phenomenon, health concerns, childcare issues,...