Month: 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…

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.…

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!…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…