What I'm Reading Out of the Basement: The amount of negative yielding debt in the world is falling rapidly. After topping out at $17.8 trillion at the end of 2020, it has dropped to $6.1 trillion today. Expect this to continue to fall as central banks hike. Bloomberg One big...
January 26th – Blood in the Water
What I'm Reading Material Shortfall: Dealers in John Burns’ building products survey appear to be planning and buying inventory based on an inaccurate expectation of growth in 2022. If the results of the survey turn out to be accurate, materials companies are underestimating demand, which will cause more shortages and...
January 18th – Bare Shelves
What I'm Reading Bare Shelves: US home sales fell the most in 18 months in December. A lack of supply, not demand is driving the move. As would be expected in this environment, prices are still increasing rapidly. Bloomberg Coming Around: As the pandemic wears on, corporate America is increasingly...
January 12th – Fueling Up
What I'm Reading Fueling Up: The pandemic has reduced interest in international investments for US-based asset owners. At the same time, foreign investors are showing an increased appetite for US, with 75% of respondents to a recent AFIRE survey indicating that they would increase their volume here in the next...
December 7th – Help Wanted
What I'm Reading Help Wanted: The construction industry is 2.2 million skilled workers short of what is needed to keep up with demand. Floor Daily I'm sure that a trillion dollars or so of infrastructure spending injected into this environment will have a positive impact...... Taking Control: Amazon has taken...
December 1st – Seeds of Growth
What I'm Reading Creative Destruction: With workers quitting their jobs at nearly unprecedented levels, entrepreneurship is on the rise: The number of unincorporated self-employed workers has risen by 500,000 since the start of the pandemic, Labor Department data show, to 9.44 million. That is the highest total since the financial-crisis...
November 16th – Dead End
What I'm Reading Dead End: Just a few days after St. Paul, Minnesota voters approved the nation's strictest rent control measures, developers and their lenders are halting projects due to the economic impact. Now politicians - many of whom supported the measure - are backtracking furiously as they realize that...
November 8th – The Weakest Link
What I'm Reading The Weakest Link: Environmental and anti-business regulations make California the absolute worst possible place to be the US focal point for supply chain issues. Wall Street Journal Narrative Violation: Last week's taper announcement was met by rates falling substantially at the long end of the yield curve. ...
November 5th – Danger Zone
What I'm Reading Leverage: Just when you thought that the situation at west coast ports couldn't possibly get worse, contracts for 15,000 west coast dockworker union members are due to expire on July 1, 2022. Obviously, this situation gives the union a ton of negotiating leverage. As a point of...
November 4th – Sitting Ducks
What I'm Reading Sitting Ducks: Idle cargo containers piling up in ports and storage yards have created a target-rich environment for thieves, resulting in yet another supply chain headache. Cargo theft has increased 42% YoY in California during the 3rd quarter. CargoNet Out of Their Hands: The inflationary episode of...