Archive for March 2018

The Friday File: With Amazon now selling prescription drugs, the FDA will, for the first time, allow Amazon to cross-sell. For example, “If you like Vicodin then you’ll probably love Fentanyl”. The FDA is also going to permit those buying drugs through Amazon to review them online and say things like “Plavix is the best…

First-time claims for unemployment insurance came in last week at 215,000, the lowest weekly level since 1/27/73, 45 years ago! Moreover, first-time claims have now remained below 300,000 for 160 straight weeks, tying the previous record that ended on 4/4/1970. Despite rising rates, trade tensions, and a tech wreck on Wall Street, Main Street keeps…

In early 2014, before there were any ride-hailing apps such as Lyft or Uber, New York City cabs in all five boroughs had 15 million pickups/month. By 12/17, cab pickups numbered just 10 million/month, while ride-hailing apps numbered 15 million/month! A perfect example of lower prices boosting demand. As for the price of a Manhattan…

Friday’s new housing sales data was troubling. February sales of 618,000 were up just 0.5% Y-o-Y and YTD sales are up just 2%! Maybe it’s the new tax laws, maybe it’s rates; in a few months we’ll know. The immediate problem; new home prices are skyrocketing, up 9.7% Y-o-Y, and inventories of (increasingly highly priced)…

When it met last week, the Fed strongly suggested two more quarter-point rate hikes will happen this year. I expect three hikes, assuming nothing goes wrong such as a debilitating trade war, serious geopolitical frictions, etc. It’s easy to raise rates if the incoming economic data warrant; it’s very embarrassing to pull back. Moreover, there’s…

The Friday File: In 1951, the longest known prime number was 79 digits. It passed 10,000 digits in 1980, 100,000 digits in the early 1990s, 1,000,000 digits in the late 1990s, and is now over 23 million digits. There is a prize of $150,000 for the person who finds the first prime with 100 million…

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company wants to sell 5% of itself to investors. The Saudis suggest the firm is worth $2 trillion, partly due its staggeringly large reserves. But, dividing free cash flow of $80 billion/year, which is where dividends come from, over market capitalization and assuming that rate is the average of the biggest…

18Q1 GDP is shaping up relatively poorly, with few forecasters expecting as much as 2.25% growth, and this after a relatively strong 17Q4 at 2.5%. The culprits are many including; delays in income tax refunds, weak inventory rebuilding due to soft post-Christmas retail sales, growing fears of a trade war, sluggish new housing starts, and…

Total revenues of ISIL or Islamic State peaked at nearly $2 billion in 2015. Revenue included the sale of up to 75,000 bbl/day of oil, resulting in $600 million, taxes of $500 million, kidnapping, which generated $150 million, and extortion, which was worth $750 million. As the territory under its control shrank, so did revenue.…

While housing starts have been steadily rising since 2011, and existing sales have been growing, albeit very slowly of late, for even longer, things may slow going forward. A combination of suddenly higher mortgage rates, new tax laws that mildly depress the value of higher-priced homes, and now higher aluminum and steel prices on top…