Archive for August 2018

The Friday File: At the worst of the Great Recession, total US employment was 129.7 million. Since then, the number of employed Americans has steadily risen and is now 149.1 million. Better yet, 51% of workers said they are satisfied with their jobs, the highest percentage since 2005 when it was 52.1%. But, we have…

Consumer confidence is by some measures at its highest level since 10/2000. Unemployment is microscopic, pay is up, and GDP growth is strong. Yet housing slumps. Pending sales are down Y-o-Y for seven straight months, existing sales have fallen four months in a row, home price increases are slowing, as are starts, homebuilder share prices…

In 2010, gross sales margin as a percentage of new-car price was 4.4%; today it’s 2.5%. Relatedly, the largest US bank just reduced to zero the cost of stock and ETF trades for some of its customers, and a brokerage just introduced two stock index funds with no fees, hidden or otherwise, of any kind!…

Today, National Bow Tie Day, know that bow ties are most popular in MS, SC and AL. Just 22% of them sold are self-tied and only 1% of men can tie one! 41% of bow ties are black, followed by silver/gray at 16%. New Year’s Eve is the most popular time to wear one, followed…

While many emerging nations suffer from some of the conditions that ail Turkey, no other nation has them all. These problems include a huge budget deficit, the second highest current-account deficit among emerging market nations, huge externally denominated sovereign and corporate debt, profoundly high inflation, an inert central bank, virtually no international friends, and a…

The Friday File: This year’s Boston Red Sox are, to date, one of the best baseball teams ever assembled. Their current .698 winning percentage puts them on pace for 113 wins; fourth most in a season. The only teams with more victories would be the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 2001 Seattle Mariners with 116 wins…

July new housing sales were slightly disappointing at 627,000, but they’re up 7.2% YTD and should end 2018 up at least 6% compared to 2017. For the macro economy, it doesn’t much matter. Back in 2003, well before the Housing Boom, residential fixed investment, which includes new single-family and multifamily construction, renovations, and broker commissions…

While income disparities are large in the US, they are large in the EU too. Based on purchasing power, the region of Inner London – West has the highest per capita GDP in the EU at 611% of the average, followed by Luxembourg at 257%. Southern & Eastern Ireland follow at 217%, then Brussels and…

Total household debt first peaked in 08Q3 at $12.68 trillion, 85.5% of GDP. $9.99 trillion was housing debt, $2.69 trillion non-housing debt. Household debt then declined steadily, bottoming in 13Q2 at $11.15 trillion, or 67% of GDP; $8.38 was housing debt and $2.77 non-housing debt. Household debt has since steadily risen and is a record…

Housing starts were disappointing in July, for the second straight month. That said, starts are up 6.2% YTD which is OK. Single-family starts were up 2.7% Y-o-Y and 0.9% M-o-M, while multifamily starts were down 9.6% Y-o-Y and 3.1% M-o-M. The trends are clear; single-family starts are rising but increasingly slowly and are now growing…