Month: 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…