To the surprise of no one, the Fed raised the Fed funds rate 25bps to the highest rate in 25 years. As for future hikes, the Fed has retained complete optionality. Chair Powell said they might raise rates at the…
Electric-vehicle sales were 3.2% of U.S. vehicle sales in 2021 and 5.8% of sales in 2022. In 2023 they will reach 7.5% of sales and in 2024 easily 12%. This is because total vehicle sales are flat. From 2000-2022, sales…
YTD, $1,000 invested in each of the 30 firms in the Dow Jones Industrial Average would now be worth $32,488, a gain of 8.29%. The firm with the best performance is Salesforce, with that original $1,000 now worth $1,720, followed…
The Friday File: At present, 65% of Americans tip servers at sit-down restaurants, down from 75% in 2021. Servers in sit-down establishments are the most frequently tipped persons. Home repairmen are the least tipped at 10%. Data shows that women…
Looking back at changes in U.S. unemployment rate data since 1953, a period including 10 recessions, on average the unemployment rate has not noticeably changed during the 12 months leading up to a recession. Once the recession begins, however, the…
The stock market is signaling a soft landing, but the bond market is unequivocally predicting a recession. Similarly, manufacturing has been in recession for close to a year, but services are doing fine. Lastly, hard economic data such as construction…
While actors are believed to earn great sums, the vast majority don’t. 71% of actors earn less than $40,000/year versus 50% of working Americans. 14% of actors earn $40,000-$80,000/year versus 31% of Americans. 7% of actors, compared to 11% of…
On 3/31/23, 23.3% of home mortgages had a rate below 3%, 38% had a rate between 3%-4%, 19.9% had a rate between 4%-5%, and 18.8% enjoyed a rate over 5%. Equivalently, 61.3% of mortgages were below 4%, and 81.2% were…
The Friday File: For a $3.25 cup of coffee, rent is $1.13, staff/wages are $0.81, tax is $0.49, profit is $0.32, paper products such as the cup and napkins cost $0.23, milk costs $0.13, and coffee also costs $0.13, or…
With home prices generally reaccelerating and interest rates again testing recent highs, housing affordability is deteriorating. As of 6/22/23, with the 30-year mortgage rate at 6.67% it took $2,258, a record high and nearly 35.7% of median household income, to…