Archive for February 2023

The Fed is currently focusing on what is called super-core inflation, defined as overall CPI minus food and energy, goods, and housing. Food and energy are 11% of consumer spending, housing is 16%, and goods are 24%. Thus, super-core inflation includes 49% of overall consumer spending. It’s now important since it’s where Covid has had…

Home sales eased for the 12th straight month in 1/23, the longest streak of monthly declines since 1999 when data collection began. Sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4 million, from 4.03 million in December, and 4.1 million in November. The increasingly tiny declines suggest the sales bottom is here or fast…

The first restaurant to allow drivers to take meals “to go” was an In-N-Out Burger that opened in 1948, Jack in the Box followed in 1951. McDonald’s first drive-through was in 1975. In 2022, at U.S. fast-food restaurants 85% of orders were taken to go, down from 90% in 2020, but up from 76% pre-Covid.…

Pounded Profit With 23Q1 earnings season almost over, it appears net profits for S&P 500 firms will be 11.3%. While this would be the sixth straight quarterly decline, and well down from their 21Q2 13% peak, it returns profits to where they were in CY2019. Despite higher sale prices, elevated labor, materials, and energy costs…

At the end of 2022, 9.3% of subprime borrowers, those with FICO scores below 660, were 30 days or more behind on their car payments. This is the highest rate since 2010. In addition to being squeezed financially, it’s partly because used car prices are falling, and when used car prices peaked some dealers sold…

In 22Q4, for the first time since at least 1974 when data became available, the quarterly number of housing units built-for-rent at 133,000 exceeded the number of single-family units built-for-sale at 126,000. Historically, the only times these numbers came close were during the recessions of 1982 and 2008/09 when single-family production collapsed. Single-family built-for-sales starts…

The state with the most presidents births is Virginia with eight, followed by Ohio with seven, New York with five, and Massachusetts with four. Those states account for 52.2% of all presidents. New Jersey and Vermont both have three, and North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas have two each. Eight presidents have been born west of…

The Friday File: In calendar year 2022, of the 100 most-watched U.S. television broadcasts, Super Bowl LVI was the most watched, not a big surprise. However, of the top 10 most watched shows last year, nine were NFL games, and of the top twenty, 19 were NFL games. Of the top 100, 82 were NFL…

From 1976 through 1979, 418,000 entry-level single-family houses/year were built, 34% of all new homes constructed. In the 1980s, the number fell to 314,000/year, still 33% of all new homes built. In the 1990s it shrank to just 207,000/year, and in the 2010s about 150,000/year. During the just completed 2010s, starter homes averaged just 55,000/year,…

While inflation fell from 6.5% Y-o-Y in 12/22 to 6.4% in 1/23, and core inflation similarly declined from 5.7% to 5.6%, its fourth straight decline, the declines are moderating. Worse, core-services inflation, which excludes energy and is the Fed’s favorite measure, has not declined for 17 straight months and is up 7.2% Y-o-Y. Inflation is…