The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

The Friday File: For the year ending 11/30/23, the most popular Wordle opening word was ADIEU, at slightly over 8% of all opening guesses. STARE is the next most popular at about 4.75%, followed by SLATE at 4.5%. AUDIO is…

The Earth takes exactly 365.24219 days to rotate around the sun. Adding an extra day every four years makes the average length of a year 365.25 days, slightly too much. The Gregorian calendar eliminated leap days in years ending in…

The current share of the S&P 500 market capitalization held by the largest five firms is a staggering 25%. Those firms are, in order of market capitalization, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Nvidia. The last time the top five were…

January existing home sales rose 3.1% M-o-M to a rate of 4 million, the best level since 4.03 million in 8/23, but sales fell 1.7% Y-o-Y. Despite high rates, home prices rose 5.1% in January Y-o-Y to $379,100, the highest…

Based on 6/23 data, 19% of households used buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans in the past year. BNPL use peaks at 43% among households with credit scores below 620. Usage is also highest, at 41%, among households who had…

The Friday File: In 1960, the male marathon record was 135 minutes and the female record was 220 minutes. By 1980, the male record was 129 minutes while the female record was 150 minutes. Today the male record is 2:00:35…

U.S. firm markups over prices rose 11% between 1980 and 2015, but the reason is likely quite benign. The primary cause is the shift by consumers, who have become steadily wealthier, towards buying more services, which has allowed service providers…

Immediately pre-Covid, the vacancy rate at U.S. shopping centers was 6.25%. The rate peaked in 12/20 at over 7% but has been declining since and is now 5.3%, the lowest level in probably decades. This is because consumers are again…

While housing starts in January fell 15% M-o-M and almost 1% Y-o-Y, that misses the point entirely. Single-family starts slid 4.7% M-o-M but are up 22% Y-o-Y. By contrast, multifamily fell 36% M-o-M and 38% Y-o-Y. Similarly, single-family permits rose…

The best current economic trend is rising labor productivity. After sinking from 22Q2-24Q2, it recently posted the best two quarters since mid-2010! Part of me is skeptical as job growth has recently been in education, leisure & hospitality, and healthcare,…