Choosing the right adjective can be a challenge. For example, let's say you want to precisely describe how good you think something is. Sure, you could just say "It's good", but what if the thing you're describing is better than that?

Perhaps it's "quite good". Or "really good". Maybe it's even "very good", but is that better than something that's really good?

What if it's "awesome"? Is something that's awesome better than something that's very good? Not knowing whether it is or not can lead to some really "mediocre" if not "rubbish" attempts to communicate on your part.

Fortunately, YouGov ran a poll back in 2018 to assign a score to the common English words and phrases Americans frequently use to describe how either positive or negative they think something is. The results are graphically depicted in the following chart, which can be used as a tool to precisely dial your description of how good something is by choosing the right adjective to convey what you really think about it:

Now, when you describe something as "decent", it's because you mean it's better than "alright", but isn't quite as good as something you think is "fine". Isn't that "fantastic", which you now know is just a tick better than "incredible"?

Computing technology continues to increase in capability every year. For hackers with top-of-the-line equipment, it is easier than ever for them to run through millions of combinations of characters to discover your passwords than ever before.

But how long that might take them still depends on how many characters long it is and what combinations of numbers, lower case letters, upper case letters, and special characters you use in your password.

Hive Systems has updated their "Time It Takes a Hacker to Brute Force Your Password" infographic for 2024. Here is the table:

Hive Systems' Corey Neskey's offers a discussion of how they determined the amount of time it would take a hacker to discover your password by trying all possible combinations of different sets of characters.

And for the record, if any of your passwords have been exposed to hackers through a data breach, the amount of time it takes a hacker to get into your account using that password is described as "instantly". Or in other words, it's time for you to change those breached passwords to something much longer with many more kinds of characters.

Here's a problem from real life in early 2024. Let's say you're thinking about taking the plunge and getting an electric-powered vehicle. Whether it's because you want to be seen as someone who cares about the environment or it's because you really like the idea of having the power of instantaneous torque when you step on the accelerator, getting an EV is something you've decided to do.

But because the technology is changing so quickly and because electric vehicle prices are falling, you don't want to lock yourself into owning an electric vehicle. You're looking to lease one for a few years instead.

Sound plausible so far? Okay, let's get really specific. Let's say you've narrowed your options and are thinking about leasing a $38,990 Tesla Model 3, which has a down payment of $2,999. The lease payment is $299 a month for three years, and at the end of the lease term the car’s market value is projected to be about 67% of its original value. What is the effective interest rate you'll pay for this leasing deal?

That's not so easy a question to answer because even if you have the right formula to plug all these numbers into, because there's no straightforward way to rearrange that equation to simply solve it for the interest rate. You'll either have to use trial and error to get to that answer or you'll need to apply some advanced math and run through a series of calculations to get to a precise approximation.

Unless you're willing to trade a little accuracy to get to a still reasonably accurate result. There is a relatively simple equation that can calculate an approximate value for the interest rate, which we've built the following tool to do. If you've accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, please click through to our site to access a working version of the tool.

The result of the tool should give you a reasonable estimate of the effective interest rate you're paying to take out this lease. For the default values in our leasing scenario, that result is 5.73%.

But if you have other numbers, by all means, take the tool for a test drive with them! And if you can get the actual lease interest rate, compare your results to see how close the approximation behind this got to the exact result!

Image credit: Tesla Model 3 (2023) by Kazyakurumaon Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons CCO 1.0 DEED CC0 1.0 Universal .

Later this week, on Thursday, 25 April 2024, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will publish its first estimate of the United States' Gross Domestic Product during the first quarter of 2024.

Because that date is so close, it's a good opportunity to check in with how 2024-Q1's GDP tracks with what a momentum-based forecasting method projected it would be for this quarter over seven months ago. That simple method, called the "Climbing Limo", uses nominal GDP data that was available back in September 2023 in its projections.

The following chart reveals how closely that method worked for anticipating the final GDP estimate for the fourth quarter of 2023 (2023-Q4), which only became available last month. As you can see, there's only a half-percent difference between the forecast for 2023-Q4's nominal GDP and the BEA's official estimate for the quarter.

If the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for 2024-Q1 is right, this quarter could be the first in which actual GDP exceeds the climbing limo's momentum-based forecast in the period covered by the chart.

Which means nearly nothing. That's because when economic growth is relatively stable, it's common for forecast and actual GDP data series to periodically cross over each other just based on variation in the data. For the period shown on the chart, which presents the Climbing Limo forecast using only the actual GDP data shown on the chart, it has been unusual for actual GDP to have so consistently underperformed the momentum-based forecast.

That could be because inflation, which is built into the nominal GDP estimates, has been slowing over this period. But there are other potential explanations that could account for that pattern as well, including slowing momentum in the U.S. economy after the initial phase of the post-Coronavirus Recession recovery.

Regardless, it will be another two months before we get the BEA's final GDP estimate for the first quarter of 2024 to see how good the Climbing Limo's forecast for 2024-Q1 turned out to be.

Looking much further forward, since the GDP data for 2023-Q4 has been finalized, the Climbing Limo method projection using that data point suggests some rather robust GDP growth through the third quarter of 2024. Unfortunately, it will be months before we find out how good that forecast is. As a general rule of thumb, it's usually within a few percentage points of the actual GDP estimate, but that can change if the economy turns a proverbial corner, either for the better or for the worse. In either of these cases, a comparison with the Climbing Limo forecast provides a useful confirmation of which situation applies.

Update 25 April 2025

The BEA issued its first estimate of nominal GDP for 2024-Q1: $28,284.5 billion. That figure is 0.7% higher than the seven-month old climbing limo forecast of $28,075.4 billion, so reported GDP has crossed above the climbing limo projection. The BEA will finalize its GDP estimate for the quarter, at least outside of its annual revisions, at the end of June 2024. Most news reporting is focusing on the inflation-adjusted "real" GDP figures coming in lower than had been forecast. The first estimate of the real growth rate for 2024-Q1 is 1.6%, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast tool had antipated 2.7% growth as recently as 24 April 2024.

References

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. National Income and Product Accounts. Table 1.1.5. Gross Domestic Product. [Online Database]. Accessed 21 April 2024.

Political Calculations. Forecasting GDP Using the Climbing Limo. [Online Tool]. 10 May 2005.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A limousine with the letters 'GDP' driving upward to the top of a hill on a very rocky road, with the limousine driving on the rocks".

The S&P 500 (Index: SPX) fell again durin ghte third week of April 2024. The index closed out the week at 4,967.23, a little over three percent below the level it closed the second week. The index has dropped 5.5% below its record peak closing value from 28 March 2024.

The main driving force behind the falling level of stock prices are slipping expectations for when and by how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates during 2024. The CME Group's FedWatch Tool anticipates the Fed will hold the Federal Funds Rate steady in a target range of 5.25-5.50% until 18 September (2024-Q3) when a quarter point reduction is expected, some twelve weeks longer than expected just a week earlier. The tool also projects only one rate cut in 2024, the timing of which is looking uncertain.

As we illustrated in a separate analysis, that slipping timing is reducing the expected level of dividends in future quarters. Right now, we think investors have been scared by the "no rate cut" bear into shifting their forward-looking focus to either 2024-Q3 or 2024-Q4, with their investment time horizon being affected by the sliding expectations for when the Fed might alter the level of short term interest rates in the U.S.

We're basing that hypothesis on the level the dividend futures-based model is projecting the potential level of the S&P 500 will be a month from now as we're within the month-long window in which its projections have "locked in". The latest update for the alternative futures chart shows the current level of the index is consistent with the model's still-dynamic projections outside of the locked-in period:

An alternate explanation is the stock market is experiencing a regime change, in which the dividend futures-based model's basic multiplier has changed, but we would need several more weeks of data to confirm if that is the case. We're weighing these scenarios behind the scenes, where we haven't yet seen sufficient data to determine the established value of the multiplier has definitively broken from the level it has held since 9 March 2023.

In the meantime, the context provided by the market-moving headlines of the week points to that market regime still holding. The week's headlines point to the rapidly slipping expected timing of rate cuts in 2024, which continued in the past week, as the continuing culprit in the decline of stock prices during the last several weeks.

Monday, 15 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US growth may be a global boon, but inflation could derail the train
• Oil slips as risk premium eases after Iran attack
• Fed minions say they won't rush to cut rates until they need to see data pointing to wage inflation:
• Fed should not act urgently to cut rates unless required, Daly says
• US workers seeking record wages to consider new jobs, New York Fed says
• Fed's reverse repo facility plummets to lowest level in nearly three years
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China's Q1 GDP growth likely to slow, more stimulus on the cards
• China c.bank keeps policy rate unchanged, drains cash from banking system
• Economic growth signs in Japan:
• Japan's machinery orders rise sharply, may ease concerns about domestic demand
• Nasdaq, S&P, and Dow ended notably lower while yields rallied once again
• US stocks tumble as Treasury yields rise, Middle East tensions simmer

Tuesday, 16 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US single-family housing starts plunge in March
• Oil slips as concern eases about Middle East supply risk
• US manufacturing output increases in March; February data revised higher
• In reversal, Fed minions claim they need more time to combat inflation before they can cut rates:
• Federal Reserve's restrictive policy needs more time to work, Jerome Powell says
• Fed could keep monetary policy tight for longer if needed, Jefferson says
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China as Q1 growth better than expected:
• China's Q1 GDP grows 5.3% y/y, well above forecast
• China's cycle of dollar hoarding and weakening yuan gets vicious
• China's new home prices decline at fastest pace since 2015
• Chinese city Zhengzhou tells state-owned company to buy second-hand homes to reduce new housing inventories
• Nasdaq, S&P, Dow end mixed after hawkish Powell further clouds rate cut expectations
• Wall Street stocks close lower on higher Treasury yields, rate expectations
• Gold extends record run as prices near $2,400; Citi sees $3,000 on the horizon

Wednesday, 17 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US regional banks seen booking more commercial property losses, loan sales
• Oil dips as demand worries outweigh Middle East supply risks
• US wheat farmers face bleak crop economics as grain oversupply hits
• Fed minions say they're in "no hurry" to cut interest rates:
• Fed to cut US rates 'at some point, but no hurry, Mester says
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• At Chinese trade fair, exporters fear goods are 'as cheap as cabbage'
• ECB minions looking forward to cutting Eurozone interest rates, don't want to review their inflation target anytime soon:
• ECB firmly behind June rate cut but views diverge on July
• ECB's Vasle sees rates much closer to 3% at year-end
• ECB's Centeno says policy would be tight even after two rate cuts
• ECB's Lagarde hints it is too early to review inflation target
• Nasdaq sheds more than 1%, S&P posts four-day losing streak, Dow slips slightly

Thursday, 18 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil extends losses on easing Middle East tension, demand concerns
• Mortgage rates top 7% for the first time this year, Freddie Mac says
• US existing home sales drop in March; median price increases
• Fed minions now saying they're in no "mad dash hurry" to cut interest rates:
• Fed's Bostic says he is not in a 'mad dash hurry' on rate cuts
• Fed's Bostic: open to a rate hike if inflation progress stalls
• Fed's Williams doesn't see urgent need to cut interest rates
• BOJ minions promise future rate hikes will be slow:
• BOJ's Noguchi says future rate hikes likely to be slow
• BOJ's Ueda signals possible rate hike if weak yen boosts inflation
• ECB minions say they're "crystal clear" on cutting Eurozone interest rates in June:
• ECB 'crystal clear' on June rate cut, de Guindos says
• German home building permits tumble 18% in February, extending rout
• S&P posts five-day loss for first time since Oct, Nasdaq & Dow end mixed; eyes on Netflix
• Netflix handily beats subscriber targets, misses on revenue forecast

Friday, 19 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil settles slightly higher as Iran plays down reported Israeli attack
• Fed says 1,804 banks and other institutions tapped emergency lending facility
• IMF minions getting mad at Fed minions; Fed minions say they're doing nothing because Bidenflation not going away:
• Fed's rate-cut foot-dragging grates on global peers at IMF meetings
• Fed policy on hold because of 'stalled' progress on inflation, Goolsbee says
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China's steel sector has bigger worries than Biden tariff hike
• BOJ minions say rate hikes are coming:
• BOJ's Ueda says 'very likely' to hike rates if inflation keeps rising
• ECB minions say inflation could go either way:
• ECB's Lagarde says inflation more likely to ease but risks both ways
• Wall Street's April pullback intensifies as S&P 500 notches worst week in over a year
• Nasdaq, S&P tumble as Netflix, chip stocks drag; AmEx boosts Dow
• Netflix slips as move to end sharing subscriber count raises growth doubts
• AmEx surpasses profit estimate; small-business strategy in focus

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's latest estimate of real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2024 (2024-Q1) rose to +2.9% from the +2.4% growth forecast last week.

Image credit: Microsoft Bing Image Creator. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a bear with a sign that says 'NO RATE CUTS' scaring Wall Street traders"

What happens when you embed a miniature flying drone inside a ball? Or more precisely, when you mount a lightweight miniature drone inside a ball-shaped frame that allows air to pass through so the drone's rotors can work?

What you get is a bit of modern magic that lets you play catch with yourself. Meet the Flying Orb Ball Hover Toy, or "the boomerang ball", the concept of which is demonstrated in the following short video (HT: Core77):

Versions of this technological wonder are available at retailers like Amazon and Walmart. And like many modern tech-based toys, it has a rechargeable battery.

That brings us to the downside of this new technology. It takes 25 minutes to charge up one of these flying orbs to get about 10 minutes of play time from it. So for you and your kids to get maximum entertainment from these devices, you would have to buy several, as we suspect their makers and retailers are hoping you might.

If you take that plunge, you might also think about getting one of those ball bags that baseball umpires use, which of course, are sold separately.

Nearly four weeks ago, we put down a marker for what lay ahead for the S&P 500 based on the index' quarterly dividend futures.

Looking beyond 2024-Q2, you'll see something unusual. There's projected drop-off in quarterly dividends between 2024-Q2 and 2024-Q3. It's unusual because we would ordinarily expect to see the third quarter's anticipated dividends fall in between the projected values for the second and fourth quarters. And since the outlook for the index' dividends in all quarters has been improving, we would have at least expected to see it close the gap between the second and fourth quarter's values.

But it hasn't. If anything, the projected drop-off in the dividends expected to be paid from 2024-Q2 to 2024-Q3 has been remarkably persistent in all the months we have been observing it and has increased in size. That persistence suggests investors have potentially built in expectations of turbulence ahead for dividend paying stocks.

That market turbulence would most likely take place during the upcoming quarter of 2024-Q2, which would subsequently show up in the dividends paid in the following quarter of 2024-Q3.

We're not even three full weeks into 2024-Q2 and the leading edge of that forecast market turbulence would appear to have arrived. The S&P 500 has dropped nearly four percent from the record high level it reached at the end of March 2024. Here's what the S&P 500's quarterly dividend futures look like as of Monday, 15 April 2024:

As expected, we've also had to reset the vertical scale of this chart to accommodate the dividends expected to be paid out in 2024-Q2, which has risen from $18.96 to $19.11 per share since our last snapshot.

Meanwhile, the amount of dividends expected to be paid out by S&P 500 firms during 2024-Q3 has decreased, falling from $17.82 to $17.72 during the last four weeks. The projected dividends for 2024-Q4 has likewise fallen, dropping from $18.45 to $18.31 during this interval.

The decline in expectations for the S&P 500's quarterly dividends in these future quarters is a consequence of a change in expectations for how the Federal Reserve will set short term interest rates in the U.S. Four weeks ago, the CME Group's FedWatch Tool indicated investors expected the Fed would launch a series of quarter point rate cuts at six-to-twelve week intervals before the end of 2024-Q2. As of 15 April 2024, the FedWatch Tool projects the Fed will only cut the Federal Funds Rate once during 2024. That cut is anticipated in September.

With U.S. interest rates being held higher for longer, the resulting higher cost of paying interest for borrowing money is expected to reduce the earnings of many of the companies whose stocks make up the S&P 500 index. Those lower earnings, in turn, mean lower dividend payouts.

There is a bright spot in this outlook, for which we also put down a marker with its own cautionary note:

Since quarterly dividends are projected to rise in 2024-Q4, that suggests investors expect this turbulence will be relatively short-lived.

At least, that's the implied expectation at this juncture. The most important thing to remember about the future is that it's subject to change with little notice.

A lot has changed in the last four weeks. Our next planned snapshot of S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures and what they indicate will be in five weeks.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A fortune teller looking into a crystal ball to make a prediction about the S&P 500".

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, teen employment surged in March 2024.

The seasonally-adjusted figures are pretty impressive. The number of teens Age 16 to 19 counted as employed jumped by 224,000 to reach 5,832,000 from February to March 2024. That's the highest reported figure since April 2008.

The employment situation in March 2024 was especially good for older teens. The number of Americans Age 18 and 19 with jobs rose 161,000 from the previous month's seasonally-adjusted total to 3,756,000, the highest this figure has been since May 2008.

Younger teens, Age 16 and 17, also saw a pickup in their number of employed, which rose 111,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 2,146,000 in March 2024. That figure is 6.5% below below their March 2022 peak, where we have to go back to mid-2007 to find a higher number of employed younger teens. With respect to that March 2022 peak, while March 2024 was positive, an overall downtrend for younger teens remains in place.

The following chart set visualizes the seasonally-adjusted numbers for the number of working teens in the U.S., showing the employment figures and employment-to-population percentages for younger teens (Age 16-17) and older teens (Age 18-19) as well as the combined population of working Age 16-19 year olds.

The share of employed teens among the population of Americans Age 16-19 remains below their 2023 peaks, but all in all, March 2024 was a good month for teens with working ambitions.

References

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics (Current Population Survey - CPS). [Online Database]. Accessed: 5 April 2024.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "Editorial cartoon of teenagers lining up to interview for a job at a store."

Inflationary price increases have resumed for Campbell's Tomato Soup.

Our monthly survey of the prices at which ten major grocery retailers are selling an iconic Number 1 size can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup indicates upward price movement has resumed after stabilizing during the latter half of 2023.

The changes we're observing are significant for U.S. consumers because Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) has produced and sold its condensed tomato soup product in this standard 10.75 fluid ounce can continuously since January 1898. Because of that inherent characteristic, its price is not affected by the marketing trick of shrinkflation, in which producers try to hold their shelf prices steady for consumers in the face of sustained inflation by reducing the quantity of goods contained within their packaging. Its price cannot hide the corrosive effects of inflation within the economy.

Here are the prices we're observing in our mid-April 2024 survey along with how they have changed since our January 2024 report:

• Walmart: $1.26/each, unchanged
• Amazon: $1.26/each, decrease of $0.73 (-36.7%)
• Kroger: $1.39/each, increase of $0.10 (+7.8%)
• Walgreens: $1.99/each, unchanged
• Target: $1.39/each, unchanged
• CVS: $2.49/each, increase of $0.60 (+31.7%)
• Albertsons: $1.69/each, increase of $0.20 (+13.4%)
• Food Lion: $1.25/each, unchanged
• H-E-B: $1.31/each, unchanged
• Meijer: $1.29/each, unchanged

We think the most significant price change is the shelf price increase at Kroger-affiliated grocers. The Kroger (NYSE: KRO) family of grocery stores is the largest chain for this category of retailers in the United States. By comparison, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is a larger retailer, but sells far more categories of consumer goods than just groceries. Together, these two companies sell more cans of tomato soup than many of the other grocers combined.

That includes Amazon, which is the only grocery-selling retailer to decrease their price in this report and which sells far fewer cans of soup than either Walmart or Kroger. Amazon is unusual among our surveyed grocery sellers in having very volatile pricing for Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup, showing large swings in price from month to month. Our main takeaway in the online retailer's price for a single picnic-size can of Campbell's second-biggest selling soup product is that its April 2024 unit price is not less than $1.26, which is close to the floor among all our surveyed stores.

The following chart tracks the changing price of a 10.75 ounce can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup from January 2000 through April 2024. (See this article for a chart visualizing our full price history from January 1898 through January 2024).

The trailing twelve month average price of a single can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup is $1.25 in April 2024. This figure is 30% higher than what it was in March 2021 and is consistent with how overall food prices have changed in the U.S. economy in the period since the current era of elevated inflation began.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup".

The repercussions of delayed rate cuts continued to shake out in the U.S. stock market in the past week. Overall, the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) dropped a little over 1.5% from where it ended the previous week to close at 5,123.41 on Friday, 12 April 2024.

Most of that decline came on Friday. Bad news came in the form of diminished earning expectations for big U.S. banks, whose previous outlook had counted on the Federal Reserve delivering rate cuts starting before the end of 2024-Q2.

Speaking of which, with the change in outlook for rate cuts, the CME Group's FedWatch Tool now projects the Fed will hold the Federal Funds Rate steady in a target range of 5.25-5.50% until 31 July 2024. The tool also projects just two rate cuts in 2024, one on 31 July (2024-Q3), the other in December (2024-Q4). And a first rate cut on 31 July 2024 is looking shaky.

We've rolled the alternative futures chart forward to show the dividend futures-based model's projections for the S&P 500 through the second quarter of 2024.

We find the actual trajectory of the S&P 500 running below the model's projections, with the deviation taking place entirely during the past week. Right now, it's too early to tell if that's a consequence of a regime change in the market, which is on the table because of the change in expectations for the Fed's rate cuts. A regime change would mean the dividend futures-based model's multiplier has itself changed from the value of +1.5 it has mostly held since 9 March 2023. We'll be able to make that determination within the next few weeks.

In the meantime, here are the market-moving headlines from the week that was.

Monday, 8 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Major food companies offering deals, new sizes as low-income Americans spend less
• Despite $90 crude, US oil output capped by weak natgas prices
• Oil prices dip on Middle East ceasefire talks
• Fed minions worry about "upside inflation":
• 'Upside' inflation risks keep Fed officials wary of turn to rate cuts
• Minneapolis Fed's Kashkari: Central bank can't 'stop short' on inflation fight
• Fed rate cut expectations for 2024 fall to lowest since October
• More stimulus developing in China:
• China central bank to set up $70 billion tech re-lending programme
• BOJ minions shocked their attempt to create inflation is working:
• Japan real wages fall for 23rd straight month in February
• Interest rate cuts developing in the Eurozone:
• ECB’s rate cuts can help bond traders – and itself
• A final hurdle: Five questions for the ECB
• Nasdaq, S&P, and Dow, ended unchanged while yields moved up
• Morning Bid: Wall St eclipsed as June Fed cut in balance
• Gold hits another record high; China's central bank adds gold for 17th straight month

Tuesday, 9 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US small-business sentiment slides to lowest level in more than 11 years
• US Postal Service seeks to hike stamp prices to 73 cents
• US Treasury yield forecasts rise as rate cut calls recede
• US Gulf Coast heavy crude oil prices firm as supplies tighten
• Bigger stimulus gaining traction in China:
• China's March new yuan loans seen rebounding, more stimulus expected - Reuters poll
• BOJ minions say they'll keep money spigots open:
• BOJ expects monetary conditions to stay accommodative, says Governor Ueda
• Bigger trouble developing in Eurozone:
• Euro zone banks lower bar on mortgages but demand keeps falling - ECB
• Nasdaq, S&P end higher in late-session recovery, Dow closes little changed ahead of CPI

Wednesday, 10 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US consumer prices heat up in March; seen delaying Fed rate cut
• Inflation: Grocery prices reaccelerate, now 25% higher than pre-pandemic
• Oil settles higher after Israeli strike overshadows ceasefire talks
• As US bank profits drop, focus shifts to interest income outlook
• Fed seen cutting US interest rates later, and less, as inflation stays hot
• Fed's 'confidence' in disinflation not bolstered by recent data, minutes show
• Fed officials preparing to slow pace of balance sheet runoff
• Fed's rate-cut confidence wobbles as elevated inflation persists
• Fed looks to slice balance sheet runoff pace by half
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• Fitch downgrades outlook on China to negative, affirms 'A+' rating
• S&P slashes property giant China Vanke's credit rating to junk
• China has been closing idled auto output capacity, industry body says
• BOJ minions want to avoid hiking interest rates for falling yen bailout:
• BOJ's Ueda rules out responding to weak yen with rate hike
• Wall St ends sharply lower as sticky inflation dims rate cut hopes
• Nasdaq, S&P, Dow languish in the red, Treasury yields surge after hot CPI data

Thursday, 11 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Focus: Soaring insurance costs hit as US buyers finally get a break on car prices
• July start to Fed rate cuts back in view after data
• Fed minions say they are in no hurry to deliver rate cuts, expect trouble for U.S. banks:
• Fed officials in no rush to cut rates as inflation worries rise
• Fed's Collins sees no urgency to cut rates
• Fed's Williams: Banks should be prepared to use discount window if needed
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China's Q1 GDP growth set to slow to 4.6%, keeps pressure for more stimulus- Reuters poll
• China's exports likely swung back to contraction in March
• China's weak CPI, factory-gate deflation point to more stimulus
• BOJ and JapanGov minions teaming up to ready bailout for falling yen:
• Japan says it won't rule out any FX action as yen hits 34-year low
• Explainer: Why is the Japanese yen so weak?
• ECB minions getting excited to cut rates in June 2024, claim to be independent from U.S. Federal Reserve, but are they really?
• ECB holds rates at record highs, signals upcoming cut
• ECB puts June rate cut into view, asserts independence from Fed
• ECB cannot ignore Fed as it goes down its rate cut path
• Nasdaq, S&P climb, Dow ends flat as investors gear up for earnings season with big banks
• Gold resumes rally to record high after softer U.S. inflation reading
• US quarterly earnings to feature big growth in tech-related companies

Friday, 12 April 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil settles up on Middle East tensions, posts weekly loss
• US banks' profit picture less clear with cloudy rates trajectory
• Citi profit falls on severance costs from reorganization while stock slides
• JPMorgan profit beats estimates even as interest income misses predictions
• Wells Fargo profit beats estimates as shares swing on interest outlook
• Fed minions dial back rate cut expectations, worry about bailing out banks:
• Fed's Daly: absolutely no urgency to cut US interest rates
• Inflation still too high for Fed to cut interest rates, Schmid says
• Exclusive: Fed's Collins eyes about two rate cuts this year
• Less than half of U.S. banks ready to borrow from Fed in emergency
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• China's March exports and imports shrink, miss forecasts by big margins
• Nasdaq, S&P, Dow end deep in the red as stocks suffer worst session since late January
• S&P 500 notches worst weekly performance since October on sticky inflation woes

Any effect on stock prices from Iran's attack on Israel from territory it controls in Iraq over the weekend will be seen in the week ahead.

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's latest estimate of real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2024 (2024-Q1) ticked down to +2.4% from the +2.5% growth forecast last week.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Federal Reserve official trying to pull down a sign while a disappointed bull watches"

Solving Sudoku puzzles has become a very popular pastime around the world since the Times of London began publishing them twenty years ago. Although the puzzle itself has been around for much longer, it was its appearance in the Times that prompted its popularity to explode.

The puzzle itself can be described as a kind of simplified crossword puzzle, but with numbers. And maybe not so simple. Sudoku.com sets out the basic rules:

Sudoku is played on a grid of 9 x 9 spaces. Within the rows and columns are 9 “squares” (made up of 3 x 3 spaces). Each row, column and square (9 spaces each) needs to be filled out with the numbers 1-9, without repeating any numbers within the row, column or square.

Sounds simple, right? In practice, how simple a Sudoku puzzle is to solve depends on how many numbers have already been filled in on it. Here's an example of a moderate-to-easy-to solve Sudoku puzzle you can try on your own.

In solving this puzzle, you're taking advantage of Sudoku's rules to fill in the missing numbers. Since each number from 1 to 9 can only appear once in each row and column, and only once in each 3 x 3 box, you can use a process of elimination to identify where the correct digits to solve the puzzle can be placed. For instance, you can probably find the right place to insert a number 9 pretty quickly just by looking at the left-most column, the bottom two rows, and the upper-left 3 x 3 box.

Like crossword puzzles, Sukoku puzzles also have a kind of symmetry to them. It's that symmetry, combined with Sukoku's rules, that offers a way to find the right places to put the missing numbers. You just have to see the secret pattern and that's what the following Numberphile video featring Cracking the Cryptic's Simon Anthony is all about:

Now that you know about the Phistomephel Ring, as this secret pattern hidden in plain sight is called, try using that knowledge to help solve your next Sudoku puzzle.

Image credit: Sudoku Puzzle by L2G-20050714 standardized layout on Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

The first quarter of 2024 has come and gone. Along the way, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has been rising at one of the fastest clips on record.

That observation is a good sign of the extent to which China, the worlds's biggest consumer of coal and the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide emissions, is pushing to grow its economy.

But China isn't alone in increasing its emissions at such a fast rate. India is also boosting its consumption of coal and its emissions of carbon dioxide to power its economic growth.

Together, the two most populous nations in the world are leaving their mark on the Earth's atmosphere. That mark can be seen in the rate at which carbon dioxide is being added to the Earth's atmosphere, which we measure as the trailing twelve month average of the year-over-year change in the concentration of CO₂ in the air as measured at the remote Mauna Kea Observatory. The following chart shows how that measure has evolved from January 2000 through March 2024:

The rapid rise in the pace at which carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere during the first quarter of 2024 can be traced to the increased coal consumption of both China and India.

China and India lifted imports of seaborne thermal coal to three-month highs in March as the world's two biggest buyers took advantage of lower international prices of the fuel to meet strong domestic power demand....

For the first quarter, China's seaborne imports of the grade of coal used mainly to generate electricity were 80.64 million tons, up 17.2% from the 68.82 million recorded in the same period in 2023.

The strength in China's imports is being driven by a combination of strong growth in power demand and by seaborne prices being competitive with domestic coal.

Official data showed China's power consumption was 11% higher in January and February this year compared to the same months in 2023, and power generation rose 6.9% in 2023, outpacing the 5.2% growth rate for the economy as a whole.

China's electricity demand is being boosted by a variety of factors, including increasing electrification of the vehicle fleet, higher demand from air conditioners and appliances, and increased electrification of industrial processes, such as some types of smelting.

The article notes China imported some 29.7 million metric tons of coal in March 2024, almost double India's coal imports. India is the world's second-biggest buyer of coal.

Overall, the portion of excess carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere generated by China is on pace to exceed the United States' residual historic CO₂ emissions before the end of the decade.

References

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth System Research Laboratory. Mauna Loa Observatory CO2 Data. [Online Data]. Updated 5 April 2024.

Image credit: Damn that Smoke (Suzhou, China) by DaiLui on Flickr. Creative Commons CC by 2.0 Deed Attribution 2.0 Generic.