A recession is not bullish for the overall market so studying how the civilian unemployment rate behaves before a recession hits should help tune out any and all noise from talking heads.
The red shaded areas in the above chart shows past recessions.
The red circles within this chart are times when the unemployment rate "flattened out" before either continuing downward or made an abrupt move upward.
The blue circles are "V shaped" type bottoms where there was just an abrupt jump in unemployment from one month to the next.
As you can see recessions always followed or were in the process once the abrupt move up in unemployment began.
The green dotted line shows the historical context of a 3.4% rate in unemployment.
As you can see on the far right, the current rate of unemployment has flattened out over the last 12 months, ranging between 3.4-3.7.
If you are bullish equities, you have to ask yourself...what is the macro thesis for this chart to continue downward as it did in the other cases where a recession was NOT followed by a flattening of the unemployment rate?
If you are bearish equities just know that this chart can remain within this range/stay flattened for another 9-25 more months before it abruptly moves upwards (like it did in the 1950's & 1960's). Perhaps the flattening out period even extends beyond a 3 year period.
Needless to say...I am on extra high alert for signs of an equity reversal based upon the above however I'm not going to fight the bullish market sentiment either. Always be nimble.