The Friday File: Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte debuted 21 years ago in 2003 in just 100 stores in Washington, DC and Vancouver, WA. It was so popular, in 2004 PSL was rolled out nationwide and October sales instantly jumped 25%.…
Seasonally adjusted annualized July housing sales came in at 3.95 million, the 35th straight month of Y-o-Y declines, and the fifth month of sub-4 million sales, a level historically rarely seen. Troublingly, 30-year rates are 81 basis points lower Y-o-Y…
For the year ending 3/24, estimated job growth has been preliminarily revised down by 818,000, bringing average job growth down from 242,000/month to 174,000/month. The revision is based on data from state unemployment insurance tax records, not low response rate…
Gold recently surpassed $2,500/oz and has been rising rapidly since 10/22, when it traded at $1,650/oz. A major reason, central bank buying. From 1970-1988, cumulative net central bank gold purchases were roughly zero. From 1989-2009, banks were net sellers every…
Two recent papers show the detrimental effects of gambling. One reports that where gambling is legal, average credit scores drop 0.3% after four years, and where online betting is legal, they drop by 1% and bankruptcy filings rise 25%-30% within…
The Friday File: It’s always critical to remember that correlation is not causation. For example, there is a .93 correlation coefficient (CC), and an R-Squared of .86 between the name Bailey and attendance at Cleveland Indians/Guardians baseball games between 1975-2019.…
July CPI fell to 2.9%, its lowest level since 3/21, while the more important core measure hit 3.2%, its lowest since 4/21. Moreover, over the last three months core CPI is up 1.6% annualized, down from 2.1% in June. The…
Pre-Covid, next twelve-month operating margins for fortune 500 firms on an equal weighted basis (thus largely excluding tech mega-caps), were 13%. When Covid hit they quickly collapsed to 9% by 6/20. However, over the ensuing 12 months they more than…
When fund managers were asked what they consider the biggest tail risk, a recession is now top for 39% of managers, up from 18% a few months ago. Geopolitical conflict is unchanged at 25%, while inflation follows at 12%, down…
The labor market is meaningfully weakening. A year ago, the Y-o-Y increase in the labor force was 3 million and net employment gains were 2.9 million. 97% of job entrants found a job. Now the labor force is 1.3 million…