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So far this earnings season, 87% of firms have beat analysts profit expectations, well above the normally inflated 65%. Moreover, the earnings beats have averaged 22.8%, crushing the 3.6% average since 1994. Why? Large firms have taken market share from…

The Friday File: In 2001, 17% of NBA shots were threes, in 2011 it was 22%, in 2016 it was 28%, and now it’s 40%! Moreover, players have been making more of their threes since 2017 than they did from…

GDP grew at a pleasantly fast 6.4% annualized rate in 21Q1 and is now just 0.9% below its inflation-adjusted level on 12/31/19. It will surpass that level in mid-May 2020. By contrast, it took more than three years for real…

During the upcoming redistricting cycle, Republicans will control map drawing in 188 House districts, Democrats 73, versus a 219-44 edge in 2011. The remaining seats are in states where power is split, a commission is in charge, or states have…

While bank earnings are way up from where they were in 20Q1, looks can be deceiving. The biggest earnings drivers have come from increases in trading, capital markets (fees from stock and bonds sales), and large releases of loan loss…

March sales of new homes hit a seasonally adjusted annualized rate 1.02 million, 20% above the very strong February number of 846,000, their best performance since 11/06. Moreover, the inventory of completed homes for sale is at record low, below…

The Friday File: In 2015, the average US household had 1.6 streaming subscriptions, it rose to 1.7 in 2016, and 2.0 in 2017. In 2018, it hit 2.2, in 2019 2.7, and in 2020, amazingly 3.1. 75% of households have…

In 1996, prior to the current aviation safety regime, US passenger airlines had a fatal accident rate of one crash for every two million departures. That year, there were 350 deaths in domestic airline accidents. By 2006, the rate had…

Almost forty years ago, on 10/9/81, the interest rate on a 30-yr mortgage peaked at an amazing 18.63%. Today that rate is just 3.04%, a decline of 83.7%! Conversely, today, the price for a thousand board feet of lumber on…

In Israel, where per capita Covid-19 injection rates are highest, 62% of the adult population have received at least one vaccination (we’re at 50.4%), daily cases/million residents have fallen from a peak of 952 in mid-January (we peaked at 770…