Archive for March 2025

The Fed’s favorite inflation measure, core PCE, came in slightly hot at 0.4% in February, up from 0.3% in January. Y-o-Y inflation was also elevated at 2.8%, up from 2.7% M-o-M. Worse, over the last six months annualized inflation is 3.1%, over the last three months it’s 3.6%! Now, just wait until tariffs begin to…

The Friday File: In the early 1990s there were about 9,000 bank robberies/year. By the early 2000s, robberies were about 8,000/year. By 2010, they slid to 6,000/year, and in 2023 robberies numbered just 1,362. Why the huge decline? Less money to steal as banks better protect their money, thus dollars/robbery have fallen. Also, fewer banks…

On 12/31/24, US households held $38 trillion in public firm equities, 1.7 times disposable income. During the late 1960s, during the Dotcom Boom, and as recently as 2020, it reached but never exceeded 1.2. A decline in equity prices, now more than ever, risks reducing consumer sentiment and thus spending, particularly among the top 20%…

Cross-border fund flows are going to meaningfully shift as President Trump tries to reduce or eliminate trade deficits. Because the trade deficit is offset by the capital account, a lower deficit means fewer dollars being poured back into stateside physical assets, equities, and debt. So, more production and jobs at home, but higher capital costs…

Despite Secretary Lutnick’s recent comments, Social Security is a key source of income for many! Half of seniors get over half their income from SS, 25% of recipients get 90% or more. For those with a bachelor’s degree, SS provides at least 50% of income to one-third of recipients, 90% of income to 13% of…

After a significant rise in CEO optimism in the months following the November election, CEO confidence fell 20% in early March compared to January and is now at its lowest level since spring 2020. Making things worse, CEO forecasts for what conditions will be like in 12 months fell 28% from January and are at…

The Friday File: The odds of correctly picking all 63 games in the men’s/women’s NCAA basketball tournament, assuming each team has 50% chance of winning each game, is 1 in 9,223,372,063,854,775,808, or 1 in 9.2 quintillion. There aren’t that many grains of sand on Earth. Assuming you have a 75% chance of picking each game’s…

In 1991, US net imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products averaged six million bbl/day. In 2000, net imports were 10 million bbl/day, and they peaked in 2006 at 12.5 million bbl/day. Then everything reversed. In 2010, imports declined to 10 million bbl/day, by 2015, five million bbl/day, and in 2019 they hit zero.…

The Fed left interest rates unchanged at today’s meeting, but there were tariff-related adjustments. Forecasted 2025 GDP growth slid from 2.1% to 1.7%, and 2026 growth from 2% to 1.8%. Expected 2025 core inflation rose from 2.5% to 2.8%, but hinting that tariff inflation is likely transitory, inflation forecasts for 2026 and 2027 remained unchanged…

The latest homebuilder sentiment index was super-soft. The overall index slumped to 39 (50 is neutral) same as, ugh, 2/07, and two of the three subcomponents worsened, current sales to 43, prospective buyer traffic to 24, and sales expectations over the next six months remained unchanged at 47. Weather wasn’t to blame, all four regional…