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…

Mid-March figures from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer Sentiment were dismal. Overall consumer sentiment sank 11%, and after big declines in January and February, is at its lowest level since 2022. Except for 2022 and Covid, it’s at its worst level since 1980. Pessimism was broad-based and seen across all groups by age,…

The Friday File: Soon the NCAA wrestling championship tournament will occur. The men’s program with the most team championships is Oklahoma State with 34, Iowa follows with 24, including nine straight from 1978-1986, then Penn State with 12, including 11 of the last 13. Relatedly, there have been six four-time NCAA individual male champions in…

The trade deficit (the current account) plus net capital inflows (the capital account) must equal zero. A slow-growing nation like Japan runs a trade surplus of $200 billion/year, but it invests $200 billion/year abroad. Conversely, the fast-growing US runs a net trade deficit of $1 trillion/year but receives net foreign capital inflows of $1 trillion/year.…

February CPI inflation was a light 0.2% M-o-M and 2.8% Y-o-Y, core was also 0.2% M-o-M but 3.1% Y-o-Y. All readings were better than last month. Fuel price declines helped, as did slowing rents. And Powell’s “super-core” index, which is core minus rents, was a benign 0.2%. Importantly, this decline in inflation is probably a…

If de-risking from China matters, then Mexico is a strategic, low-wage alternative, and thus imposing tariffs on Mexico makes no sense. Relatedly, why impose tariffs on industries in which we don’t compete, such as potash, or low margin car parts? All tariffs do in these cases is raise costs. Lastly, I suspect that because supply…

February net job growth was a decent 151,000, January was revised down by 18,000 to 125,000, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.1% despite the labor force participation rate sliding from 62.6% to 62.4%. Mild continued weakening is visible. Critically, this report is based on employment the week of 2-12-25, before any meaningful tariff discussions…