The DOL reported: seasonally adjusted initial claims was 220,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 221,000 to 222,000. The 4-week moving average was 226,000, an increase of 1,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 224,250 to 224,500. emphasis added The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971. Click on graph for larger image. The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims increased to 226,000. The previous week was revised up. Weekly claims were lower than the consensus forecast.

Plus! Crowded Trades; CoreWeave; The Bots; Accounting; Political Meme Stocks

From CoreLogic: CoreLogic: Borrowers Gained Over $280B in Home Equity in 2024 Homeowner Equity Report (HER) for the fourth quarter of 2024. Nationwide, borrower equity increased by $281.9 billion, or 1.7% year-over-year. The report shows that U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 61% of all properties) saw home equity increase by about $4,100 between Q4 2023 and Q4 2024, which is less than the gain of $6,000 in Q3 2023. The states that saw the largest gains were New Jersey ($39,400), Connecticut ($36,300), and Massachusetts ($34,400), while the largest losses were in Hawaii ($-28,700), Florida ($-18,100), and the District of Columbia ($-14,700). From the press release: Home prices continued to be the major driver of equity shifts and markets with declining prices generally saw fallen equity in 2024. In particular, a number of Florida’s markets, including Cape Coral, Sarasota, Lakeland and Tampa have experienced weakening prices over the past year, which led to Florida’s average equity declining by about $18,000 at the end of 2024. Thinking ahead, in light of mass government layoffs in Washington metro region, it is important to note that borrowers in the tri-state area have accumulated between $261,000 (in Maryland), $287,000 (in Virginia) and $353,000 (in Washington DC), in average home equity which will help as a financial buffer but also provide a downpayment in case of a move. This map from CoreLogic shows the average year-over-year change in equity by state.  States with surging inventory - like Florida and Texas - saw declines in equity.

The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Will we revel in a New Roaring 20s of exhilarating expansion, or will we suffer a Great Depression 2.0? Gordon Long and I explore this binary in our latest podcast. Why is the next decade a binary of extremes rather than another period of "muddle through"? The short answer: Cycles. Take your pick: the Fourth Turning, the Kondratieff credit cycle, Peter Turchin's 50-year cycle, the Debt Supercycle, and a host of others--they're all hitting their inflection points now. If you dismiss all the cycles, fine. Just look at the political, social and economic state of the world, and you reach the same conclusion: a major historical inflection point in in play. While President Trump's policies are drawing all the media attention, Gordon and I break it all down to three defining systemic dynamics: 1. America's great wealth-income divides, i.e. the winners and losers of financialization and globalization: rural / urban, Main Street / Wall Street and the generational divide. 2. The allocation of capital: creative destruction vs monopoly / cartels. How will the nation's capital be invested? Will it be squandered in malinvestment that serves the interests of private equity, or will it be invested to serve national interests? 3. DOGE and entrenched interests' resistance to change: government over-reach, unlimited deficit spending and the decay of accountability do not serve the common good, yet these excesses benefit powerful entrenched interests who will pull out all the stops to defend their slice of the pie. As I have often noted, the past 40 years can be understood as the Age of Hyper-Financialization and Hyper-Globalization, as these forces have come to dominate the America's economic, political and social landscapes. Financialization and globalization are not neutral forces: they generate winners and losers, and a deep gulf between the two extremes. Coastal urban regions have been the nig winners, rural America has been the big loser. Wall Street has been the big winner, and Main Street the big loser. The Boomer Generation that bought stocks and housing when they were affordable to the majority have been the big winners as these assets have soared in credit-asset bubbles, and the generations priced out of these assets have been the big losers. Monopolies and cartels have been the big winners, to the detriment of everyone else. The crapification of goods and services and the rise of precarity has enriched monopolies, cartels and private equity, at the expense of the rest of us. Will the nation's capital be invested in the common good and the citizenry, or will it serve the interests of private equity? The heavily promoted fantasy is that enriching private equity magically serves the common good and the citizenry, but the decline of the nation's health and security speak to the reality that self-enrichment is not the same as investing in the citizenry and their interests. The core requirement of good governance are: 1) transparency 2) accountability 3) prudent borrowing/spending and 4) limits on over-reach. That each of these are in need of improvement is undeniable, and resistance comes in two flavors: those with different ideas of reform and those resisting any diminishment of their power and share of the state's largesse. The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Clinging on to whatever serves the interests of those benefiting from the current arrangement can be sold as "change," but this isn't adapting, it's maladaptation on a systemic scale. Whether we get the Roaring 20s or the Great Depression 2.0 boils down to this: Are we adapting via real transformations, or are we controlling the narrative to protect those benefiting from the status quo? Stay tuned. My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. Thank you, Harley O. ($20/month), for your outrageously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Tim C. ($10/month), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. Thank you, Kitty B. ($7/month), for your magnificently generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Michael F. ($7/month), for your very generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. Go to my main site at www.oftwominds.com/blog.html for the full posts and archives.

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios. initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for 225 initial claims up from 221 thousand last week. Producer Price Index for February from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in PPI, and a 0.3% increase in core PPI. Q4 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.