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Was it just me, or was the media relentless in January? We had a remarkable fracas about the so-called “Pakistani grooming gangs” scandal here in the UK, with Elon Musk weighing in. At the time it seemed remarkable but one month later, as I write this, I am pleased to say I can’t remember the… Continue reading Jan ’25: Trump 2.0 begins →
Readers will know that I dabble with active investing – I pick stocks. Lord, make me passive, but not yet Rather like The Investor at Monevator, I firmly believe in the merits of low cost index tracking as an investment strategy, but I also enjoy the thrills / intellectual excitement of deviating from the true… Continue reading My exits – a post mortem →
London life I’ve been keeping busy as winter in London sets in. The Christmas lights are all out and looking resplendent, and both the West End and the City are feeling pretty buzzy. For all the general ‘UK stuck in the weeds’ economic commentary, we feel a long way from any talk of recession. A… Continue reading Nov ’24: 3x →
I haven’t seen much of London in October. I’ve been away every weekend in October, partly in the UK and partly visiting friends overseas. And now we’re in November, the clocks have gone back, but temperatures haven’t plummeted yet. London feels busy – pubs still have crowds outside. Finally, the UK’s first Labour budget for… Continue reading Oct ’24: Budgets & broad shoulders →
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Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios. For deaths, I'm currently using 4 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent three weeks will be revised significantly. Note: "Effective May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data." So I'm no longer tracking hospitalizations. COVID Metrics NowWeek AgoGoal Deaths per Week859953≤3501 1my goals to stop weekly posts. 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths. ✅ Goal met. Click on graph for larger image. This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported since Jan 2023. Although weekly deaths met the original goal to stop posting in June 2023 (low of 314 deaths), I'm continuing to post now that deaths are above the goal again - and I'll continue to post until weekly deaths are once again below the goal. Weekly deaths are now decreasing following the winter pickup. And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of February 20th: This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths. This has moving down recently. Nationally COVID in wastewater is "Moderate", down from "High" last week, according to the CDC.
Types, Ellison, AI, YouTube, Private Credit, Globalization, Lending, Huawei
At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week: Click on graph for larger image. NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.08 million SAAR in January Housing Starts Decreased to 1.366 million Annual Rate in January The "Neutral" Rate and Implications for 30-year Mortgage Rates California Home Sales Down 1.9% YoY in January; 4th Look at Local Housing Markets Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in January
By mid-century, changes in Berkshire Hathaway's voting control could make a breakup of the conglomerate likely.
From BofA: We initiated our 1Q US GDP tracker with the January retail sales print on February 14. Since then, our 1Q GDP tracker is down two-tenths to 2.3% q/q saar from our official forecast of 2.5% q/q saar. Meanwhile, our 4Q GDP tracking is down two-tenths to 2.2% q/q saar since our last weekly publication. [Feb 21st] emphasis added From Goldman: [W]e lowered our Q1 GDP tracking estimate by 0.1pp to +1.9% (quarter-over-quarter annualized) and our Q1 domestic final sales estimate by 0.1pp to +2.1%. We left our Q4 past quarter tracking estimate unchanged at +2.1%. [Feb 19th estimate] And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow [T]he GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is 2.3 percent on February 19, unchanged from February 14 after rounding. [Feb 19th estimate]
