The Friday File: The humble anchovy is the primary ingredient in fishmeal, making it essential to production of salmon/seabass/shrimp. The expected El Niño could sharply reduce anchovy catches, creating shortages, perhaps dwarfing the impacts of the 1997 El Niño because…
Caterpillar’s 26Q2 earnings were superb. The AI boom continues to drive demand for its engines and generators, while construction activity boosts demand for dump trucks/bulldozers/excavators. Quarterly revenue hit an all-time high, it raised full-year sales guidance, and its backlog is…
While the Chinese yuan is indeed undervalued, it’s not the key to reversing China’s immense trade surpluses, it’s primarily an outcome. China suppresses household consumption and is experiencing collapsing residential property values. That combination creates weak currency. The US runs…
Weekly first-time claims for unemployment fell 22,000, the biggest decline in three months, to a seasonally adjusted 187,000, the lowest level of new applications since September 1969. While the drop was probably due to some quirks, the consistently low level…
New central bankers tend to make mistakes; Warsh made his first on Wednesday. His decision not to raise rates, after steadily talking tough about inflation and price stability, pushed long-term Treasury yields to multidecade highs. This is because bond markets…
The Friday File: The first known ambulance service was introduced in Cincinnati in 1865. In 1869, NYC horses were kept harnessed throughout the day to save time. This practice was soon replaced by drop harnesses lowered directly onto each animal…
While 26Q2 GDP growth slowed to 1.5% annualized, net exports (think imported semiconductors) subtracted a full percentage point from GDP and inventory drawdowns subtracted another 0.7%. That means final sales to private domestic purchasers rose at a rate of 3.9%…
Since 1949 there have been, including the present, 12 bull markets, defined as a rise of 20% or more. The average price return has been 191.6% and the average duration, 66.4 months. Over the same period the average return across…
Comparing women who began taking GLP-1s for weight loss with similar women who wanted to but hadn’t yet started reveals a stark divide. Among unemployed women, employment rates rose 27 percentage points for those taking GLP-1s, a gigantic gap. Similarly,…
When financing conditions are easy and investors expect rate cuts, as was the case early this year, the search for extra income/yield by investors intensifies. Capital moves from Treasuries into investment-grade, from investment-grade to high-yield, and from stronger speculative-grade to…