Economy & PolicyExtended setexperimental liveNew

Jolts Quits Wage Pressure Short

Updated monthlyData needs: lowshort only

1988

Akerlof, G., Rose, A.K., Yellen, J.L. (1988). "Job Switching and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Labor Market." BPEA. Combined with Stevens (1997) JLE.

Citation only, paper link pending.

In plain terms

When the BLS JOLTS data shows industry separations (people quitting + getting laid off) jumping above their 12-month average in labor-intensive sectors like restaurants and retail, wage pressure follows. Short the basket for 1-3 months.

How it works

Elevated industry separations (the closest BLS-JOLTS public proxy for the unobservable quits-rate; quits aren't published as a separate column at supersector grain) signal wage-cost pressure in labor-intensive firms — restaurants, retail, hospitality. The path: elevated turnover → wage pressure → margin compression → -EPS surprise on the SHORT side.

Live results

0 times picked on its own · 158 times inside a blend (151 beat the stock) · updated 2026-06-06

This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 158 such blended picks (151 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.

How its picks scored vs. buy & hold

Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock

Where its edge concentrates

Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold

How often it trades

Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often

Return vs. buy & hold

How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)

Loading substrate evidence…

Data dependencies

Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
Jolts industry openings
BLS Job-Openings & Labor-Turnover Survey at monthly cadence.
Stocks
A data feed this strategy reads, refreshed on its normal schedule.

Expected edge

Reported return: -1 to -3% over 21-63d
Tested over: T+45d to T+63d after publication

-1 to -3% over 21-63d on labor-intensive names during wage-pressure regimes.

Example tickers where this is likely to fire

CMG MCD SBUX DRI WMT TGT MAR HLT

Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.

Related families

Jolts Hiring MomentumPrice & Market Behavior

Industry-level: when BLS-JOLTS openings YoY surge >+20%, that industry's stocks outperform 1-2 quarters out — hiring leads earnings.

Jolts Hiring Acceleration LongEconomy & Policy

Industry hiring acceleration (the 3-month change in YoY job openings growth) leads earnings surprises by about a quarter. When an industry's hiring growth jumps by 5+ percentage points over 3 months, go long the industry leaders for 1-3 months.

Macro RegimeEconomy & Policy

Uses Fed-funds, term spread, and credit spread (FRED data) to flag risk-off vs risk-on regimes and scale exposure accordingly.

Explore Jolts Quits Wage Pressure Short on alphactor.ai

See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.

Open universe with this filter →Browse all 572 families