What I'm Reading The Great Unbundling: A recently published Federal Reserve analysis of household formation shows a meaningful decline in living with roommates / others since the pandemic, coupled with a rise of living alone. This happened as consumption of housing went up during the pandemic and I've referred to...
May 24th – Shock and Awe
What I'm Reading Shock and Awe: Amazon has put 10m square feet of warehouse space on the market (it could reportedly go up to 30m sf) as the ecommerce giant deals with excess supply brought online during the pandemic. However, a deeper look tells a different story. The 10m sf...
May 23rd – Whack-A-Mole
What I'm Reading Whack a Mole: Americans moved around a lot over the past two years, and those destinations also now happen to have the highest inflation rates in the U.S per new research from Redfin. Conversely, places like San Francisco that people left tend to have lower inflation. Redfin...
May 20th – Holding the Bag
What I'm Reading Holding the Bag: The Federal Reserve now owns $2.72 trillion in mortgage backed securities, up from $1.4 trillion in 2020. It has announced the intent to shrink that amount substantially in order to help tighten monetary policy. However, most of those loans are at much lower rates...
May 19th – Cash Trap
What I'm Reading Cash Trap: The rapid appreciation of the dollar this year helps boost the exports of weaker countries while alleviating inflationary pressures in the US by lowering the cost of imports. However, it also translates into higher import prices, more costly external debt servicing and greater risk of...
May 18th – Breakdown?
I'm travelling during the first half of the week so the next couple of days or so will be charts. Chart of the Day Breakeven inflation rates have been drifting lower of late and I've been seeing hedging costs come in quite a bit as well. The market appears to...
May 17th – The Waiting Game
What I'm Reading The Waiting Game: Buyers who signed contracts for new homes are now facing the risk that rising mortgage rates will make them unable to afford it by the time the home is completed. Wall Street Journal Open the Gates: More than four dozen former national security leaders...
May 16th – Running on Empty
What I'm Reading Running on Empty: Record low diesel inventories on the east coast of the US could lead to rationing with truck stop giants Love's and Pilot Flying J already warning truckers of an imminent shortage. Much of this is being driven by "insane" prices in Europe that are...
May 13th – Can’t Fix Stupid
What I'm Reading Can't Fix Stupid: California's Democratic State Senate Leader Toni Atkins is proposing to spend $10 billion to help families buy homes. The proposal would create a revolving fund that would provide interest-free loans for up to 30% of the purchase price of a home for low- and...
May 12th – Pushback
What I'm Reading Pushback: Consumers are doing less grocery shopping online as health concerns fade and consumers become more cost conscious thanks to inflation. Chain Store Age Offshored: The tech industry is warning that more remote jobs are headed out of the US thanks to worker shortages and a lack...