Legendary central banker Alan Greenspan died today at 100. He led the Fed for 18.5 years, second longest tenure ever. His successes: allowing the economy to shine in the 1990s, saving the global economy following Long-Term Capital Management’s collapse, his…
The Friday File: Uruguay produces more top soccer players/capita than any nation at 11.3, then Croatia 4.81, Netherlands 4.58, and Argentina 3.82. After accounting for GDP based on PPP, Europe but especially LatAm massively outperforms. Partly it’s because Europe/LatAm have…
By just about any measure, US equity valuations are highly elevated. Dating back to 1900, the trailing P/E ratio is currently at its third highest reading ever. The Shiller CAPE ratio is at it second highest ever, and trend P/E…
Fed Chair Warsh made it clear in his first meeting that regime change is in. Of the 19 persons on the committee, 18 provided rate/inflation/GDP projections. The press statement was 130 words versus 341 words for Powell’s last, and it…
In 2004, sending a text cost $0.10, but by 2010 unlimited texting was included in many plans. Now it’s AI’s turn. Google just reduced its entry-level consumer AI Plus plan from $7.99/month to $4.99/month. OpenAI is looking to drop its…
Not only is Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, but his net worth exceeds that of the next four richest people (Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison). Moreover, his net worth of $1.1 trillion exceeds the GDP…
The Friday File: With the 2026 World Cup already underway, Spain is favored. They’re defending European champs and BetMGM has them at +450, meaning a $100 bet will get you $450 profit plus the initial $100 (17.5% chance of winning…
When Amazon went public in 1997 as a loss-making online bookseller, it issued shares at 2.9 times revenue. In 2004, Google’s shares debuted with an established and profitable advertising model backing its search engine and went public at 8.5 times…
Markets are now virtually certain the Fed will hike rates by year-end but doing so when inflation isn’t being transmitted into wages makes no sense. Average hourly earnings rose by +3.4% Y-o-Y in May, but inflation as measured by the…
From 24Q4 through 25Q4, the value of household equity portfolios rose $10.31 trillion, or 18% to $67.77 trillion. By contrast, house prices have increased little. Thus, a record 33% of household net wealth is now held in equities, well above…