70 Words

As the date the U.S. Treasury will hit the debt ceiling approaches, investors are increasingly taking note. The cost of a one-year U.S. sovereign credit-default swap that pays out should a default occur has risen from its typical 10bps to…

The national median existing-home price fell 0.9% Y-o-Y in 3/23 to $375,700 from $379,300. Prices have now fallen Y-o-Y for two straight months, the first time in 11 years. Median home prices peaked during 6/22 at $413,800 and are now…

The Friday File: Earlier this week was 4/20 or “fourtwenty”, the unofficial high holiday of weed/stoner culture. Since California legalized medical marijuana (THC) in 1996, recreational cannabis is now legal in 21 states and D.C., and medical use is legal…

At just over $2,000/oz, gold is within striking distance of its high of $2,069.40 set in 8/20. With the Fed raising rates, gold seems unattractive. However, because it’s priced in dollars, the decline in the dollar has made gold cheaper…

Leading economic indicators and manufacturing activity are signaling recession, labor markets and consumer spending aren’t. However, the unemployment rate is a coincident/lagging indicator. Moreover, the Bloomberg recession indicator and the NY Fed curve-based recession model are at 55% and 60%,…

After peaking at a painfully high 15% in 4/20, the Misery Index, the sum of the unemployment rate and the annual inflation rate, fell steadily and bottomed out at 7.7% during 1/21. It then rapidly rose due to, among other…

Median rent fell 0.4% Y-o-Y in March to $1,937, the first decline since 3/20. Rents are 19.9% higher than they were in 3/20. The biggest decline was in Austin, where rents fell 11% to $2,104, followed by Chicago where they…

The Friday File: The median airplane traveler would pay an extra 5%-10% for an adult-only flight that’s up to three hours in duration. For a six-hour flight, it’s 10%-20%. When asked how much extra they would pay to sit in…

At present, worker quit rates are running at about 2.6%/month, which results in average hourly wage growth of about 4.5%/annum. At that rate, and assuming inflation elsewhere becomes quiescent, inflation will run at about 3.5%/year, one-and-a-half points above the Fed’s…

The March Y-o-Y Core CPI reading of 5.6%, up from 5.5% gives the Fed permission to raise Fed fund by 25bps on 5-3-23. But the hikes end there. Banking is struggling. System-wide deposits collapsed at a 30% annualized rate in…