Econ70

Single-family housing starts keep falling, and July’s 808,000 annualized are at their second-lowest level since 4/2020! July new-home sales of 607,000 annualized are down 6.3% Y-o-Y and haven’t been consistently this low since 2017. Moreover, median prices are at a…

When WeWork attempted to go public, it cited a total addressable market (TAM) of $3T. Uber followed with $6T and just recently SpaceX called its TAM a laughable $28.5T. But now comes Anthropic, reportedly preparing to claim a $30T+ TAM.…

There’s currently $31.5T of Treasuries, of which $5.75T have remaining maturity of 10+ years. The Fed already owns $1.6T, leaving $4.1T with a maturity of 10+ years that can be bought. In a market that big, buying $2B more does…

Three structural forces are pushing up long rates: the budget deficit outlook, skyrocketing AI-related corporate debt issuance, and the changing nature of the Treasury buyer. In 2009, 40% of foreign Treasuries holdings were in central banks, today it’s roughly 12%.…

The Friday File: The deepest hole ever drilled is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, drilled between 1970-1989. It reaches 12.3km, where the temperature is 356F. It’s located on the Kola Peninsula in Northwestern Russia, 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle.…

While the US debt just crossed the $40 trillion mark, what matters much more is debt held by the public, and it’s “only” $32.3 trillion. The difference is intragovernmental debt. But even that number needs context. The critical number: the…

The business sector has been liquidating physical inventories for five straight quarters. If companies were expecting future inflation, they would be building inventories to avert further cost increases —not to mention capturing the IVA revaluation in earnings. Conversely, in 2021…

In CY2023, net job growth averaged 210,000/month; in CY2024, 122,000/month; in CY2025, 10,000/month; and from 1/26–7/26, it’s 61,000/month. Job growth has clearly slowed, partly due to changing immigration policies. Other factors, including Boomer retirements and fewer births, no doubt play…

July retail sales rang in at a dismal -0.6% M-o-M, and, adjusted for inflation, were slightly worse at -0.7%. Moreover, the “control group” retail sales number, which feeds directly into the personal consumption segment of GDP, contracted 0.4%. But don’t…

The Friday File: Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer with 35% of global production, mostly arabica beans, a variety widely used in premium/specialty coffees. Coffee output is reported in 60kg bags of unroasted coffee. Brazil’s production is 63 million…