First, a big thank you for prayers on behalf of ailing Zeus the Cat. His appetite is back a bit, and between hand feeding of food, some cat kidney pills plus a gentle application of deworming meds, he’s up and about better than a week ago. Now into the projects of this holiday screwed-up week… … Read More
Remember the Talking Heads song “Lifetime Piling Up“? Well, what’s going on now is a kind of rhyming riff off that. When long-denied social media fairytales turn out to be true. We expect a growing sense of confusion and uncertainty into year-end. Because stock prices no longer relate to growth, crypto gambles are turning into … Read More
Let me huff a bit on the whiteboard marker before we rock the morning for you… This being the 21st Anniversary of the Enron Collapse. (Ah….) So, here’s the “real deal” on jobs. Pop Size Matters U.S. population at the end of 2019 was around 328,239,523. (*George scrawls this on the board.) At the end of this … Read More
Hmm. Bunch of fresh data beginning with big layoffs in Tech: Challenger Job Cut report is just out: “U.S.-based employers announced 76,835 cuts in November, a 127% increase from the 33,843 cuts announced in October. It is 417% higher than the 14,875 cuts announced in the same month last year, according to a report released … Read More
Every year, we take a fearless poke at the future and explain our basis for ‘Life Planning’ for the coming year. The process is never simple, though. Something as complicated as one’s Life and as intricate as a global economy is more than a 5-minute essay! Today, we kick around some of the data sourcing … Read More
The important part of why the rollover is what matters now. Simply, when interest rates were at historic lows (less than half the rates of the Great Depression era) when a million-dollar home was sold, the majority of funds would be paid to the seller on closing. However, as interest rates have gone up, the … Read More
Without trying to sound prophetic, we are expecting the market to put on something of an early rally, since the stock market decline caught a lot of people (but not us) by surprise. You’ll remember a while back; we offered this potential roadmap of where things might go? Well, yeah, that’s right. We explicitly tabled … Read More
Breaking: Mauna Loa Volcano eruption. Click here for live web cam. Updates from Hank in Hawaii in the comments section. Slam, cram, and jam the leftovers, kiddies. A four-week hustle till the Fat Dude rolls begins now. And since we went short toward the end of the abbreviated Friday trading session, the main job function today … Read More
Before we begin, an unashamed plug for Amazon (“get ’em while you can”) as Cyber Monday Power Tool deals are here. Best seen with your spouse present (and you in handcuffs). If you’re not already maxed out from Black Friday, life is short and power tools are safer fun than chasing something extra (ahem) on … Read More
We’re almost to our Annual Outlook report. As part of the process we employ a number of “thinking tools” and ways of looking into the future that anyone can use. The future, understand, is all about perceptual domains. Not everyday stuff, certainly, but with the pressure off for another couple of days, it’s always good … Read More
Today’s column is long. So read it for a while, till our writing causes you to nod off. Leave the tab open and come back to it later. It’s a dopamine recovery tool for habitual Black Friday click addicts. Here’s why – after 364 days the rest of the year – about 70 percent of … Read More
Let’s begin with news and markets – to work up a good appetite, right? As we told you in advance, expect a rally Wednesday and what shows up? Yes, that’s right – the reason the Bearish Mister sits on his keester. The BIG wave count is in yellow. Next level is white. Then Green. got … Read More
This being a semi-vacation week, we’re keeping on point with breaking economic news. Since people are moving around the country in huge numbers (55+ million) for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Our consigliere had an earlier-than-expected arrival due to “dueling Garmin’s.” Yep – sitting in the driveway here, one routes his return via Athens, Texas while the other … Read More