Econ70

Prior to Covid-19, about 1 million applications to form business with employees were made during the first nine months of the year. In 2020, that number was 1.14 million, and through September 2021, the number is a staggering 1.4 million.…

The Friday File: To randomize a deck of 52 cards it is necessary to riffle shuffle the deck manually seven times. With a perfect riffle shuffle, when one card drops from each side, eight shuffles are necessary. It turns out,…

While existing home sales in September rose a surprisingly strong 7% M-o-M to an annualized rate of a very robust 6.29 million, they decreased 2.3% from the frenzied housing market of a year ago. More interestingly, however, price growth is…

While September housing starts were dragged down by multifamily starts declining 5% M-o-M, they’re up 38% Y-o-Y, and have been generally rising for the last year. Moreover, the number of multifamily units under construction is currently 701,000, the most since…

Forget Forbearance While foreclosure starts are up 32% in 21Q3 Q-o-Q and 67% higher Y-o-Y, they remain spectacularly low. In 21Q3, lenders commenced foreclosures on 25,209 units, traditionally they have numbered 40,000/month. Last year, in some months foreclosures numbered as…

The yield spread between the 5-year Treasury and the 30-year has recently narrowed despite rising inflation fears. The 5-year rate is up along with inflation, the 30-yr rate has barely budged. This is because markets now expect the Fed to…

This past Wednesday, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk (William Shatner) went where almost no man has gone before, space, in a convergence of science fiction and science. At age 90, Shatner became the oldest person in space, eclipsing the record set…

During the Housing Boom peak of 7/2006, it took 42% of median household income to cover mortgage payments on a median-priced house. That percentage bottomed at 26.9% in 1/2013 and peaked at 32% in 11/18. In 2019 and 2020, the…

This past August, 2.9%, or 4.27 million employees quit their jobs. This eclipsed the previous record high, dating back to 2000 when record keeping began, of 2.8% in April! In leisure and hospitality, the number quitting was 971,000 or 6.4%!…

US employers added a disappointing 194,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in September. Worse, the unemployment rate declined because 183,000 persons left the labor force, it’s now 3.1 million people smaller than pre-Covid-19. Fortunately, July and August were collectively revised upwards by…