I do quite a bit of speaking around the country, both to industry groups and to clients—the investors who really are the reason I do what I do. In general, the main topic is how to worry effectively about the markets and economy, including what I look at and why. Anyone who reads this blog knows the answers, as they appear every month in the economic risk factor and market risk pieces. But many clients aren’t into the whole story and want to know just the basics. So, that is what I try to give them.

It’s time for our monthly look at market risk factors. Just as with the economy, there are several key factors that matter for the market in determining both the risk level and the immediacy of the risk. Although stocks have largely recovered from their recent pullback, given valuations and recent market behavior, it is useful to keep an eye on these factors.

The primary worry over the past month has been employment: was the very weak February job number a one-off or a sign of something worse? Fortunately, it looks like the former, which eases the primary risk. Unfortunately, we saw the other risk factors continue to trend down, suggesting that the economy might well be slowing even more than expected. Here, one key point at month-end was the brief inversion of the yield curve, which raised concerns.

Last week was a busy one for economic news, including looks at retail sales, business confidence and investment, and the all-important jobs report. Although the data continues to trend down, the most significant reports—especially on employment—continue to signal growth. This week, we’ll see Fed meeting minutes and the latest numbers on consumer confidence.

The other day, we talked a bit about what the first quarter of 2019 could tell us about the rest of the year, but it provided only a high-level look. To help us understand what is going on as we approach the second quarter, today I want to dig deeper to evaluate what happened and why.

The jobs report (formally the employment report) is always important. In fact, there is no single more important economic fact than how the labor market is doing. This report hits all of the issues: job creation, unemployment, wage growth, and labor demand.

I have pretty much been ignoring Brexit over the past several weeks, apart from noting it as a risk factor. The reason was that there was no way to predict what could happen—and there were so many options that trying to analyze any one of them was, in the end, pointless.

What is the inversion of the yield curve really telling us? I discussed this and more on CNN International’s Quest Means Business today.

March was another great month for the financial markets, with U.S., emerging, and developed markets all up. But this strength was a bit strange, considering the weakening seen in the fundamentals. Here in the U.S., both consumer and business confidence took a hit, the yield curve inversion caused many to worry about a pending recession, and analysts lowered their expectations regarding corporate earnings.

Last week was a busy one for economic news, including looks at housing, trade, confidence, and consumer income and spending. This week is also full and should provide further insight on whether the recent spate of weak data is likely to continue.