What I’m Reading
Max Capacity: Prologis, the world’s largest logistics warehouse operator has announced that their facilities are effectively full. Freight Waves This begs the question: even if (HUGE IF) running port operations 24/7 increases throughput, where do all of those goods actually go once they leave the ports complexes in LA/Long Beach?
Chop Shop: There are now virtual pawn shops for NFTs that allow you to mortgage your JPEGs in exchange for cash. This comes in addition to fractionzlized NFTs and securitization. Call me old fashioned but I just can’t see how this ends well. Vice
Hoarders: New spending data shows that consumers in the US and Europe aren’t rushing to spend more than $2.7 trillion in savings socked away during the pandemic as quickly as previously thought. Bloomberg This came as somewhat of a surprise to me in light of our supply chain situation. However, calculations by Bloomberg Economics found that excess savings in US and European Banks declined only marginally – if at all – in August.
Water, Water Everywhere: Starwood recently closed its latest massively oversubscribed opportunistic real estate fund that – of course – will focus on distressed assets (of course). Globe Street The imbalance between distress (there is almost none) and fundraising for distress focused investment vehicles (massive) continues to expand. Especially interesting that one of the first investments in this new fund was a single family home rental platform which no one in their right mind would classify as distressed or opportunisic.
Confidence Game: Builder confidence is rising again despite ongoing supply chain and affordability challenges. CNBC IMO, there is nothing like the threat of rising interest rates to bring marginal buyers off the sidelines.
Chart of the Day
COVID impact on retirements can be seen below. Red is prior trend, blue is actual. Labeling on this one is odd as the blue line is actually supposed to go out to August 2021 but isn’t labeled that way.
Source: Todd Tomalak
WTF
Service with a Smile: A waitress in Atlanta allegedly pulled a gun on a customer over a dispute about cheese on an order of eggs because Waffle House. NY Post
The American Eater Wins Again: A Wisconsin butcher has been selling candy corn bratwurst. as a Halloween special. ABC 7
Basis Points – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related.
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