Month: March 2023

The Friday File: 61% of Americans plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and in the process collectively spend $6.9 billion. The previous record was $6.2 set in 2020. And it’s no wonder, 1 in 10 Americans can claim Irish heritage…

Ten days ago the 2-year 10-year yield curve was deeply inverted. Today the inversion is less than half what it was. The long end has fallen by half a point while the short end has fallen by over a point.…

February CPI rose 0.4%, down from 0.5% in January, and is up 6% Y-o-Y, down from 6.4% last month. However, core CPI rose 0.5% in February, up from 0.4% in January and is up 5.5% Y-o-Y, barely down from 5.6%…

While distasteful, the Fed/Treasury/FDIC troika had no choice but to protect all bank deposits even in accounts with balances exceeding the $250,000 insured threshold. Absent that guarantee, depositors with holdings exceeding $250,000 would have raced to withdraw their excess monies,…

While the failures of Silvergate and Signature are purely crypto related and meaningless, there are two lessons to be learned from the failure of SVB. First, major risks to the financial system can come from non-money-center banks, and second, borrowing…

The Friday File: During 2022, the average amount left by the Tooth Fairy per lost tooth was $6.23, up from $5.36 in 2021, a solid rise of 16%. The Tooth Fairy was most generous in the South leaving $6.59, followed…

We are entering peak home selling season. The months with the highest premiums over asking price are March (8.9%), April (9.2%), May (12.6%), June (10.7%), and July (10%). The five days when sellers are likely to receive the highest premium…

Used-car prices are down 7% Y-o-Y, but up 4.3% M-o-M, the third month in a row of M-o-M increases, and the largest February rise since 2008. The car market remains about five million units short from the computer chip shortage,…

As recently as 1980, it took S&P 500 firms, on average, eight employees to produce $1 million in inflation-adjusted revenue. By 1990, it was six people, and by 2000, four. Lest you think productivity slowed, by 2010 it took just…

Monetary policy works most quickly via the most interest rate sensitive sectors of the economy, autos and housing. However, for very different reasons, both sectors have successfully resisted the impact of higher rates. Car sales are rising as semiconductor supply…