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The Friday File: In zip codes where NFL games are played, debit/credit card spending rises an average of 77%. Spending rises the most, 100%, in the AFC South (Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Tennessee), and rises the least, at barely 50%,…

With Hyperscalers steadily adding new (legal, coding etc.) tools to their AI assistants, software firms including Adobe, Intuit, Salesforce and Workday are collectively down 30% since 9/25. These incumbents will adapt and integrate LLMs into their offerings. These firms have…

Walmart has become the 10th US firm, and just the second non-tech firm after Berkshire Hathaway, to hit the $1 trillion mark. Founded by Sam Walton with one store in 1962, it now has almost 11,000 stores worldwide, revenue will…

In 1980, when gold peaked at $850/ounce, the share of central bank holdings of foreign exchange reserves in gold was 70%. When gold troughed out at $254/ounce in 1999, it was 10%. Today it’s 25%-30%. Central banks are steadily buying…

Last Friday, President Trump effectively nominated Kevin Warsh to be the next Fed chairman. Warsh, a former Fed Governor, has aligned himself with the President’s criticism of the Fed and a desire for lower rates. Warsh will now have to…

The Friday File: While Google and NVIDIA are leading the charge and cashing in on AI, there are other unheralded winners. One of the biggest, the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla. It lucked into a fortune when ICAAN assigned it…

China’s power grid has installed capacity of 3.9 GW; the US, 1.4 GW. Of course, China is 4x larger and is a manufacturing powerhouse. But in the last four years, the additions to China’s grid have totaled 1.5 GW, more…

For the year ending 6/30/25 (2025), the US population grew 1.8 million, or 0.53%, down from 1% in 2024, the slowest population growth since 0.2% in 2021. The major cause; the drop in net immigration from 2.7 million in 2024…

The most disturbing piece of information from last week’s income data is the confirmation of a complete lack of income growth over the past 12 months. During 11/24, real (after inflation) disposable (after taxes) per capita personal income was $52,324…

While the Fed frets about inflation being above its 2% target, they need to get over themselves. November core PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, came in at 2.79% Y-o-Y, admittedly high. But over the past six months the annualized…