70 Words

On 7/6/24, 3.013 million people passed through US airport security checkpoints. This was the first time the total surpassed 3 million, is up 14% from the same day Y-o-Y, and breaks the previous record of 2.99 million set on 6/23/24.…

The U.S. trade deficit steadily improved from a monthly high of $102 billion in 3/22 to $60 billion in 8/23, and the improvement unsurprisingly boosted GDP growth. Since then, however, it has worsened in eight of the last nine months…

Through the end of 24H1, only 18.2% of actively managed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that compare their performance to the unmanaged S&P 500 index bested it. Believe it or not, that dismal average is down from 19.2% in 23H1…

Employers created a respectable 206,000 net June jobs, but April and May totals were reduced by a hefty 110,000 and the unemployment rate rose from 4% to 4.1%, its highest level since 11/21. While a July rate cut is unrealistic,…

The Friday File: The most visited country in 2023 was France with 100 million visitors. In second was Spain with visitors totaling 85 million. The third most popular nation is the U.S. with 67 million tourists. Next is Italy with…

Today, 87% of the population will be celebrating our independence from Great Britain, the same as last year, and down slightly from the record 90% in 2013. Planned spending is expected to be $90.42/person, down slightly from last year’s record…

On Thursday, hours before the start of the presidential debate, the 10-year Treasury closed at 4.29%. Friday, the same 10-year Treasury bond closed at 4.3% and on Monday it closed at 4.48%. A two day rise of 19bps is a…

The unemployment rate is currently 4%. Pre-Covid, it was 3.5%. Moreover, eight of 12 sectors have jobless rates above their pre-Covid levels, and two sectors are very close. The labor market has fully reverted. Moreover, Pre-Covid core PCE was 1.65%,…

The Fed’s ongoing policy of Quantitative Tightening has reduced the Fed’s balance sheet from $8.5 trillion to $6.8 trillion. This decline in assets has necessarily resulted in reduced liabilities in the form of reverse repurchase agreements (RRP) and bank reserves,…

The Friday File: The most visited museum in the world is the Louvre in Paris with 8.86 million visitors in 2023, down from 9.6 million in 2019. In second, the Vatican Museums at 6.76 million, then the British Museum with…