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The Friday File: Very recently, a bottle of champagne sold for $2.5 million, probably obliterating the record for the costliest bottle containing alcohol ever sold. Why so much? It has five NFTs of cartoon characters on the bottle. Apparently, the…

Since at least 1950, the year following US midterm elections has always seen the S&P 500 rise. During this 70-year period there have been 10 elections with a Republican president, and eight with a Democratic one. The best year for…

Last month, new home contract cancellations hit 14.5%, their highest level in years outside of 4/20’s Covid-tainted peak of 16.5% and are 30% above their seasonally adjusted pre-Covid rate. Similarly, the percentage of pending-home sales that fell out of contract…

At the peak of the Housing Boom, nearly 20 central banks raised rates to cool off their respective economies. In the recovery that followed early in the following decade, the number of central banks that hiked rates again peaked at…

With another 75bp hike this month, a 50bp hike in September and November, plus the continuing effects of QT, and the Fed will have tightened monetary policy by a staggering 350bps in CY2022. Add deeply contractionary fiscal policy, an inverted…

The Friday File: While economists fail to predict recessions, and more recently the rise in inflation, physicists are worse. They cannot figure out if hot water freezes faster than cold. Seems crazy, and seems easy to test, yet physicists are…

According to the UN, global population will reach 8 billion on 11/15/22. While birth rates are falling, it expects the number of humans to peak at 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s, down 500 million compared to the 2019 projection primarily…

The Y-o-Y increase in June CPI is 9.1%, up from May’s 8.6%, the worst reading since 11/81’s 9.6%. Core CPI is behaving arguably better, it’s up 5.9% Y-o-Y and has been falling since March, but worryingly M-o-M numbers are getting…

GDP in 22Q1 was -1.6% annualized, 22Q2 looks to come in at -2% annualized. Yet job growth in 22H1 was superb, averaging 456K/month. How can this be? Are firms hoarding workers despite falling sales because bosses expect a mild downturn…

June net job growth was much stronger than expected, and well above a sustainable pace at 372,000. Moreover, the labor force participation dipped by a tenth to 62.2%. The Fed will raise the Fed funds rate by another 75bps at…