Archive for September 2016

The Friday File: While US beer sales totaled $106 billion in 2015, the amount of beer sold fell 0.2% to 197 million barrels. However, craft brewing volume grew by 12.8% and now has a 12.2% market share. Due to its higher price, craft beer sales totaled $22.3 billion or 21% of all sales. Vermont has…

Today’s economic data capture perfectly the condition of the US economy. Employment growth is strong, as first time unemployment claims remain under 300,000/week for the 79th straight week. In addition, inflation remains benign as measured by the unchanged reading of the August Producer Price Index, and manufacturing remains weak as witnessed by the fall in…

Income Increase In 2015, median household income (MHI) surged 5.2%, the largest jump ever, to $56,516, up from $53,718 last year. MHI remains below the pre-recession 2007 peak of $57,423 and the 1999 all-time high of $57,909. Women saw their earnings rise 2.7%, while men’s rose 1.5%. Non-citizen MHIs rose 10.5% to $45,100. The only…

The peak monthly load factor (a measure of capacity utilization) for US airlines on all routes barely rose from 85% in 7/06 to 87% in 7/15. During the same period, the trough steadily rose from 73% in 1/06 to 79% in 2/16. Since 1/1/00, the lowest peak monthly load factor was 77.1% in both 8/01…

Last year, the number of US-born babies surprisingly declined to 3,977,775 from 3,988,076 in 2014. Births peaked in 2007 at 4,316,233, slightly ahead of 1957 with 4,300,000 births! In 2015, the number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15-44 tied the all-time low of 62.5; in 1957 it was 122.9; hello Boomers! In 2015,…

The Friday File: While sugar prices are up 67% YTD from 12 cents/lb. to 20 and cocoa prices are up 10% to $7,500, fret not. Cocoa beans are just 7% of the cost of a chocolate bar; while sugar is only 1.5%, despite being half the weight. 14% covers transporting and processing the cocoa beans,…

Since 2007, prescription drug prices have risen 165%. By contrast, the cost of generic drugs has fallen 70%. Moreover, the percentage of prescriptions that are filled with generic drugs is 84%. The key is competition. With one generic competitor, the average price decline compared to the brand-name competitor is 6%, with two it’s 48%, and…

Between 2004 and 2009, 45% of mutual funds run by professional stock pickers beat the stock market; not great but not dismal. Since then, only 25% of funds managed by Wall Street pros have beaten the market. That is horrendous. Turns out that increasing numbers of individual investors have given up stock picking and are…