Capitalist Xmas Tree Story, Rates Flat, Jobless Claims Increase
Wanna understand the economics of Christmas Tree sales? Why not drive to the auction house and buy a truckbed full? Spoiler alert – they didn’t end up making a profit but one of their customers was a composer and made a great carol out of it. Rates – the price of Mortgage Back Securities (MBS) […]
New Construction Demand, Home Sales on Fire
“We have been under producing for the past decade,” – Lawrence Yun, chief Economist of NAR hopes that an infastructure bill will bring high speed internet and public transportation to rural areas increasing the demand to build in places where it is cheaper and quicker to build housing. Rates – improved slightly this week as […]
$100 Bill, Single Family Construction Strength, Job Update
Currently there is about $2T in US paper money in worldwide circulation, roughly $200B more than last year. There are more $100 bills than $1 bills in circulation. Does the $100 bill make the cost of doing illegal business too low, and is it too easy for the ultra-rich to store cash reserves and limit […]
Consumer Trends, Rates Inch Up, Home Sales on Fire
In addition to purchasing more groceries, consumer buying patterns have impacted other non-obvious sectors. Sales are up on cigarettes, used cars, energy, camp supplies, and fake meat. Rates – moved up slightly this week as the 10 Year US Treasury increased for the 3rd consecutive week. Rates are down 3/4% from this time last year. […]
-$37 Barrels, Rates Improve, Freight Down
The price of oil has fallen dramatically since the pandemic – from $60 a barrel in January to negative $37 per barrel on Monday. Suddenly oil companies and speculators (investors who buy in large quantaties hoping to sell for a higher price) needed to store a massive amount of unsellable, hazardous product. In some cases […]
Jobless Claims Remain at 1.5M, Tight Supply, Strong Purchase Applications
Which economies have fared well during Covid and do they have anything in common? Japan & Germany’s work sharing programs have performed well – instead of cutting 20% of your workforce cut everyone’s hours by 20% and the government provides assistance as well. Ultimately countries with the best healthcare and aggressive early public health responses […]
FICO Algorithm Update, Rates Improve, New Homes Selling
FICO Scores – are about to change and 40,000 million Americans will see a 20+ point drop and a similar number will see a comparable increase. The FICO algorithm is updated roughly every 5 years and this time the update focuses on personal loans. Currently personal loans are growing faster than any other debt category […]
Polymaths, Jobs, Home Sales, New Construction
Polymath – was first used in the early 17th century to mean a person with ‘many learnings’ – most researches argue that to be a true polymath you need some kind of formal acclaim in at least two apparently unrelated domains. Some people fear that the pursuit of too many interests can lead to the […]
Low Inventory, New Family Member, Rates Flat
Last Week – this time last Friday I was analyzing a different type of chart and missed my regular update. We are happy to announce the birth of our 3rd boy River! Speaking of birthrates Zillow recently published an article showing inventory has dropped 6.4% from this time last year which is good if you […]
Millennial Myth-Busting, Strong Housing Reports, Rates Hopeful
Millennial Myth Busting – as an older Millennial I tire of click-baity articles that claim Millennials killed ‘x’ industry/company and can’t afford a home because they spend too much on avocado toast. Gray Kimbrough has written a few interesting economic papers that dispel many of these myths pointing toward contributing factors such as the recent […]