Month: June 2019

The Friday File: The 76% of the US population that plans to celebrate Father’s Day will spend a record $16 billion on dads this year, up from $15.3 billion last year. Average planned spending/person is expected to be $139, also…

Global manufacturing sentiment fell to 49.8 in May from 50.4 in April. Not only was this the 13th straight monthly decline in the index and the weakest reading since late 2012, but readings below 50 suggest declining activity! Closer to…

Credit card delinquency rates hit 8.1% in 19Q1, the highest rate in years. While rates are rising slowly for card holders over 30, rates are up sharply for those 18-29. Highest interest rates in decades are partly to blame, but…

Among many, there is a belief that economic expansions behave like people. That is, the longer an economic recovery, the greater is the probability of a recession. This is based on the fact that older persons are, all else equal,…

With 75,000 net new jobs in May, and downward revisions totaling 75,000 for March and April, job growth is demonstrably slowing. Additionally, Y-o-Y wage growth fell to 3.1%. This makes a July rate cut very possible. However, the unemployment rate…

The Friday File: There are 29 monarchs and 44 sovereign nations with a monarch as head of state. Queen Elizabeth II, who acceded to the throne in 1952 is the longest serving monarch; 67 years. In addition to the UK,…

The widening tariff wars are a double whammy for banks. First, falling interest rates are squeezing the gap between what banks charge borrowers and what they pay depositors, known as net interest margin, which necessarily discourages lending. Moreover, as firms…

Since 1/1/1978, there have been five inversions between 3-month and ten-year Treasuries. Each inversion lasted months, moreover each recession began, on average, 627 days after the initial inversion. The shortest gap: 293 days, the longest, 1,073 days. Assuming the current…

30 years ago today the Chinese government murdered hundreds, if not thousands, of student protestors across China, but particularly in Tiananmen Square, agitating for nothing more than freedom and democracy. In China, this event has been completely expunged. The Tiananmen…

Trump’s threat of up to 25% tariffs on Mexican imports is shocking! In 2018, total trade with Mexico, our third largest trading partner, was $611.5 billion! Moreover, two-thirds of US-Mexico trade is between factories owned by the same firm. Think…