Archive for September 2018

The Friday File: When legal weed stores first opened in WA in 7/14, the average price/gram was $32.48. By 1/1/15, it was $21.07, by 1/1/16, $12.32, and by 9/18 $7.45, and it’ll get cheaper. The price initially fell because it became legal; it keeps falling because increasingly big state-of-the-art grow facilities improve efficiencies and lower…

10 years after Lehman Brothers failed, risk has migrated. In 2008, the six largest banks had $9 trillion in assets; the four largest asset managers, $5 trillion. Today, the same banks have $10 trillion, but the same four lightly regulated asset manager behemoths have $16.5 trillion. Similarly, at its 2009 nadir, non-banks originated 9% of…

Here’s how Hurricane Florence will impact economic data: initially, weekly first-time unemployment claims will rise, with the amount of the increase quickly telling us the hurricane severity. September auto sales will fall, but October sales will spike due to buyers replacing flood damaged cars. Similarly, September employment growth will weaken, but will probably be upwardly…

Elliot was the keynote speaker at the 2018 New Mexico Housing Summit sponsored by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority in Albuquerque, September 12, 2018. Listen to the podcast interview Elliot did with Santa Fe radio before:

Y-o-Y job openings are up 11.9%, hires are up just 3.3%, and the number hired has declined three months in a row. Moreover, job openings exceed the number of unemployed by 659,000; they surpassed zero for the first time in March. Additionally, quit rates hit 2.4%, their highest rate since 4/01, and a record 25%…

August’s employment growth of 201,000 was strong, and employment growth over the last three months of 185,000/month is slightly above the CY2017 pace of 182,000. Better yet, wage growth rose 2.9% Y-o-Y, its fastest pace since mid-2009, and the broadest measure of unemployment hit 7.4%, its lowest level since 4/2001. The only downer, the labor…

The Friday File: Among persons over 69, 10% have a tattoo; 13% of those 51-69 have body art. For those 36-50, 36% have a tat and for persons 18 to 35 it’s 47%. Moreover, the percentage of persons with two or more tattoos rises from 2% for those over 69 to 37% for those 18…

YTD, the US trade deficit is $337.9 billion, a record high, and up $22 billion compared to January through July of 2017. The widening deficit is likely to reduce Q3GDP by almost a percentage point. The drivers of the widening deficit are slowing global growth, domestic fiscal stimulus leading to higher US interest rates which…

While Musk’s tweet about taking Tesla private was nonsense, it’s trend indicative. After peaking at roughly 8,000 firms in 1996, the number of US public companies has fallen steadily and is now about 4,000. Similarly, the number of IPOs has declined from about 600/year in the late 1990s to fewer than 200/year today. Why the…

The Federal Reserve is struggling with four issues. Is the nearly inverted yield curve telling us to raise short-term rates more slowly lest we invert the curve and precipitate a recession? How economically growth sapping will trade wars be? What’s the fed funds rate that’s neither expansionary or contractionary, and how close to it are…