The American Farm Bureau Federation has shopped at grocery stores across the United States and found out how much a summer cookout will cost in 2024. they report their "volunteer shoppers had their most expensive Fourth of July grocery bill in the history of the survey this year."

But how costly is that? In 2024, they found the cost of the twelve items on the Farm Bureau's summer cookout menu totaled $71.22. That total is five percent higher than last year and is 30% higher than the cost of the same grocery store items purchased for a summer cookout five years ago.

Most of that increase has taken place since 2021, when the cost of a summer cookout was 20% lower than it is in 2024. In the following interactive chart, we show how much each individual menu item from the Farm Bureau's summer cookout menu cost in each year from 2021 through 2024. If you're accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to see the chart, which we built using Datawrapper.

Only two of the twelve menu items in 2024 are less expensive than they were a year earlier: chicken and potato salad. Of the other ten items, the cost of pork chops and ground beef rose the most year over year.

Here's more information about how the Farm Bureau collects its cost data:

Volunteers from across the United States contributed to this year’s American Farm Bureau Fourth of July market basket survey to determine the average cost of summer cookout staples. The survey pulls prices for a complete, homemade cookout consisting of cheeseburgers, chicken breasts, pork chops, potato chips, pork and beans, fresh strawberries, homemade potato salad, fresh-squeezed lemonade, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. With plenty of options to feed a hungry crowd, a group of 10 this year can expect to pay $71.22 for their celebration, up 5% from last year and up 30% from five years ago. Nationally, this means we are surpassing $7 per person for the first time, with the total meal coming to $7.12 a person. Only two dishes decreased in price while everything else on your table rose, on average. Your grocery bill may be a shock, but it is in line with the inflation that has roiled the economy – including the farm economy – over the last several years.

The Farm Bureau also indicates that after adjusting for inflation, 2022 was worse than 2024, which ranks second after that cost adjustment.

Image credit: Carne y Pollo #cookout by Brendan C. on Flickr. Creative Commons: CC by 2.0 Attribution 2.0 Generic Deed.

At first glance, after downward momentum in the U.S. new home market reasserted itself in April 2024, it took deeper hold in May 2024.

That gloomy assessment is based on how May 2024's new home sales data is being reported in the media. Here's a sample from Reuters:

Sales of new U.S. single-family homes dropped to a six-month low in May as a jump in mortgage rates weighed on demand, offering more evidence that the housing market recovery was faltering.

But the sting from the largest decline in sales in more than 1-1/2 years, reported by the Commerce Department on Wednesday, was softened by a sharp upward revision to data for April, which now shows sales rising instead of falling as previously estimated. Supply was the highest in more than 16 years.

The housing market has been the sector hardest hit by the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes since March 2022. It had, however, pulled out of the slump starting in the third quarter of last year as an acute shortage of previously owned homes boosted demand for new construction....

New home sales declined 11.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000 units last month, the lowest level since November, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said. The percentage-based drop was the biggest since September 2022.

The sales pace for April was revised up to 698,000 units, a nine-month high, from a previously reported 634,000 units.

On net, we find the downturn in the new home market continues to generate headwinds for economic growth in the United States. But the upward revisions mentioned in this excerpt suggest that market in recent months may not be quite as gloomy as the May 2024's initial estimates make it appear on first glance.

The following charts track the U.S. new home market capitalization, the number of new home sales, and their sale prices as measured by their time-shifted, trailing twelve month averages from January 1976 through May 2024. The upward revisions from February through April 2024 are large enough to alter the apparent trends for all this data. Instead of falling, each of these data series now looks to be seeing either an uptick or a rising trend.

An uptick in sales:

A rising trend for prices:

The revised data suggests the trend for the market capitalization of new homes sold in the U.S. bottomed in February 2024. However, the market cap data still falls 0.7% below its most recent peak in November 2023 and more than 5% below its December 2020 peak as the new home market has not recovered from either the Biden era's inflation or its associated interest rate hikes.

References

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 26 June 2024. 

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Median and Average Sale Price of Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 26 June 2024. 

Image credit: Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash.

We're in the midst of one of the great stock market stories of all time. The soaring stock price of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) to become the most valuable company on Earth in the middle of 2024, as measured by its market capitalization, is one that market historians will study for ages.

In terms of recent market history, the rise of NVDA is most similar to the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) dividend speculation bubble of early 2012. During that event, the stock price of Apple soared in the early months of 2012 as speculation built Apple would soon re-initiate a regular dividend for its shareholders, powering the rise of the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) as the component weighting of Apple stock within the index inflated as investors piled into the stock, peaking in March 2012.

That speculative bubble went on to dissipate during the next several months, through a phenomenon we call the conveyance effect. After Apple announced its plans to resume paying dividends to its shareholding owners, many stockholders sold their shares while Apple's stock prices was still buoyed by the speculation that caused it to rise. But instead of pocketing their profits, they reinvested them in other companies that make up the S&P 500 index.

In doing so, much of those gains were conveyed to the rest of the S&P 500, even though Apple's stock price and component weighting within the index fell during the deflation phase of that bubble event.

In 2024, the rationale behind the speculative investing in NVDA's stock is different, as speculation in the stock has been fueled by the potential of artificial intelligence technology to reshape the information sector of the economy. The resulting rise in NVDA's market capitalization can be seen in the following interactive chart. [If you're accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site or to access a working version of the chart.

Since NVDA's market cap peaked on 20 June 2024, we've seen signs the conveyance effect is kicking in. Here's Capital Spectator's James Picerno arguing now is the time for investors to "rebalance" their portfolios, though he doesn't specifically cite the run-up in NVDA's market valuation:

By nearly any measure you cite, US equities are enjoying a stellar run. Despite numerous global risks, investor sentiment for American shares is resilient. The question, as always, is when is it timely to take some of the winnings and redeploy to other assets classes?

There are countless ways to engage in opportunistic portfolio rebalancing analytics, but a good way to start is by profiling performance. For US equities, the case for tamping down expectations looks persuasive. To the extent that expected return evolves inversely with trailing performance, recent history provides a baseline for thinking about risk.

Meanwhile, the view that the bear-market for bonds is over is attracting more attention. The future’s uncertain as always, of course, but one can argue that the foundation is in place for a round of portfolio rebalancing.

Then again, at least one Wall Street trading desk did specifically cite the run-up in technology stocks like NVDA as a reason to take profits and reinvest elsewhere:

Goldman's trading desk summed up the market theme perfectly today: "sell tech and buy everything else"...

Then again, they've already been doing that for at least a couple of months. The question now is how many more investors will adopt the strategy now that NVDA has achieved its lofty valuation?

About the Chart

We calculated NVDA's approximate market cap by multiplying the index's market cap as of 30 June for each year from 2015 through 2023 as reported by Ycharts by the stock's component weight within the S&P as reported by SlickCharts and captured by the Wayback Machine at the following dates:

• 28 June 2015
• 4 July 2016
• 16 June 2017
• 20 June 2018
• 19 July 2019
• 22 June 2020
• 23 June 2021
• 27 June 2022
• 7 July 2023

This method should closely approximate NVDA's market capitalization at the mid-point of each year from 2015 through 2023, though the results are subject to error because of stock price changes between these dates and 30 June of these years. For 2024, we multiplied Slickchart's estimated market cap of $45.851 trillion by Slickchart's reported peak component weight for NVDA of 7.25% on 20 June 2024 to obtain the result presented in the chart.

Since that date, Nvidia's stock price has experienced considerable volatility, so the approximate value we've shown for 2024 may be quite different from where it will settle at the end of the month.

Disclaimer: Aside from long positions in funds that track the S&P 500 index, we don't hold any position of any kind in either NVDA or AAPL, which we find to be interesting because of their influence on the index.

Image credit: Microsoft Bing Image Creator. Prompt: "An artificial intelligence computer chip with the letters NVDA in the middle." We originally featured this image on 26 February 2024.

The future for dividends to be paid during the remainder of 2024 by the firms that make up the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) dimmed since our previous update.

This negative change in expectations took place during the past week, in the days ahead of the effective end of the second quarter of 2024 with the Friday, 21 June 2024 expiration of 2024-Q2's dividend futures contracts. The change in outlook affects the anticipated dividend payouts for 2024-Q2, 2024-Q3, and 2024-Q4.

Those changes are shown in the following animated chart tracking how the future for the S&P 500's quarter dividends has changed since mid-October 2023. The animation presents snapshots we've made of that future at roughly four-to-six week intervals, with the most recent being a snapshot of the expected future for dividends taken on Monday, 24 June 2024. If you're accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to access a working version of the animated chart.

The animation captures a smaller decline between March and April 2024. That earlier dip however was not sustained and the outlook for quarterly dividends went on to generally improve during the two months that followed. Or did, up until the past week.

Here are the dates of the individual snapshots presented in the animated chart, with links to where we originally presented them:

• 13 October 2023
• 14 November 2023
• 15 December 2023
• 9 February 2024
• 19 March 2024
• 15 April 2024
• 14 May 2024
• 24 June 2024

More About Dividend Futures Data

Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter's dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter's dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. So for example, as determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2024-Q3 began on Saturday, 22 June 2024 and will end on Friday, 20 September 2024.

That makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A crystal ball with the word 'SP 500' written inside it". And 'Dividends' written above it, which we added.

The Juneteenth-holiday shortened trading week marked the effective end of the second quarter of 2024 for forward-looking S&P 500 investors. Although the calendar quarter itself has another week to run, the expiration of 2024-Q2's dividend futures contracts on Friday, 21 June 2024 is what closed the books on the quarter.

After setting two consecutive new record highs on Monday, 17 June and Tuesday, 18 June 2024, the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) retreated from its new peak of 5,487.03 after the mid-week holiday. The index went on to drop 0.4% from that high to end the week at 5,464.62, which is still about a 0.6% increase over where it closed in the preceding week.

Right now, as best as we can tell, investors are looking forward to the fourth quarter of 2024 in setting current day stock prices. The latest update of the dividend futures-based model's alternative futures chart shows the trajectory of the S&P 500 is tracking within the expected range associated with investors focusing on that distant future quarter.

As 2024-Q3 has effectively begun, it's a natural time for investors to consider what lies ahead for the direction the S&P 500. The big question remains what will the Fed do with short term interest rates and when. The CME Group's FedWatch Tool's forecast anticipates the Fed will continue holding the Federal Funds Rate steady in a target range of 5.25-5.50% until 18 September (2024-Q3). The tool forecasts the Fed will start a series of 0.25% rate cuts on that date, which will take place at six-to-twelve week intervals well into 2025 given how expectations changed in the past week.

Meanwhile, the biggest story in the stock market was the rise of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) to become the biggest company in both the S&P 500 and the world. Here are the week's marking moving headlines:

Monday, 17 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US farmers shun buyers, cling to unsold corn as prices slump
• Oil rises 1% on improving demand outlook
• Fed minions trying to commit to one rate cut in 2024, but later than market anticipates:
• Fed's Kashkari says it's 'reasonable' to predict a December rate cut
• Fed's Harker: one interest rate cut this year my base case
• Troubling economic picture developing in China:
• China's factory output disappoints, property sector stuck in doldrums
• China new home prices fall at fastest clip in nearly 10 years
• China's property investment slump worsens in January-May
• China cbank leaves key policy rate unchanged as expected
• Former BOJ minion says no rate hike by BOJ is likely in July:
• BOJ to forgo July rate hike, taper $152 bln per year, says ex-policymaker
• ECB minions working to defuse risk to Eurozone from French bonds:
• ECB pays attention to good functioning of markets, Lagarde says, after France spooks investors
• ECB's Lane sees no need for any French bond rescue
• French election worries rekindle market memories of UK budget rout
• S&P closes with new record high; Treasury yields tick upward
• S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record closing highs ahead of data, Fed comments

Tuesday, 18 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Farmers' financial pain spills from Kansas wheat fields to Main Streets
• Oil prices stable as demand uncertainty persists
• Fed minions trying to send a consistent message about rate cut plans:
• Fed officials steer cautiously toward potential rate cuts
• Fed can be 'patient,' needs more good inflation data: Logan
• Fed's Musalem signals wary approach to cutting rates in debut speech
• "Encouraged" by recent data, Fed's Kugler eyes rate cut later this year
• Fed's policy patience warranted amid still-high inflation, Collins says
• Bigger stimulus developing in China:
• China’s risky answer to wall of debt is more debt
• China's property measures give sales a boost, but only in big cities
• Current BOJ minions thinking about a rate hike in July:
• BOJ chief Ueda signals chance of July rate hike
• Nvidia becomes biggest firm, pushes S&P to another record close; Nasdaq, Dow also gain
• Nvidia eclipses Microsoft as world's most valuable company

Thursday, 20 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US labor market, housing data point to slowing economy
• BOJ minions signal coming rate hike:
• BOJ deputy governor Uchida signals readiness to raise rates further
• Japan's June factory activity eases as costs rise, PMI shows
• ECB minions looking forward to more rate cuts as Eurozone economy struggles:
• ECB's Knot backs one or two more rate cuts this year
• S&P pulls back after scaling 5,500 for first time, as profit-taking stalls Wall Street rally
• Nvidia’s staggering gains leave investors wondering whether to cash in or buy more
• Nvidia loses top spot to Microsoft after 3% drop

Friday, 21 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil set for second week of gains on signs of improving demand
• Record high prices, rising mortgage rates depress US home sales
• Things Fed minions said, summarized:
• Fed hawks and doves: the latest from US central bankers
• BOJ minions not sure what to do next:
• Japan's demand-led inflation slows, clouds BOJ rate hike path
• Bigger trouble developing in Eurozone:
• Euro zone business recovery slows sharply in June, PMI shows
• S&P, Nasdaq end lower as Nvidia drags the tech sector for second day

We'll consider NVDA's newly elevated position within the S&P 500 later this week.

Going beyond the stock market, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's forecast of annualized real GDP growth rate during 2024-Q2 ticked down a tent of a percent to +3.0%. The GDPNow tool will continue updating its forecast for 2024-Q2's GDP growth until the Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its first estimate of the quarter's GDP at the end of July 2024, after which, it will start providing estimates for 2024-Q3's GDP real growth rate.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A Wall Street bear and bull looking at a map, appearing lost".

Like clockwork, wedding season arrives every summer. For those who are going to be members of the wedding party, that means going out-of-pocket to pay for the fancy clothes that you're going to wear to the event. That's especially if it follows a traditional wedding style, which involves gowns for the bridal party and tuxedos for the groom's party.

If you're on the bride's side of the event, you're almost certainly going to buy your outfit. That's a given for the bride's gown, and while the bridesmaids' dresses are less special, they often fall into the category of something that will only be worn once. They may or may not be custom fitted, but they'll often feature unique colors or patterns that will not work for use in additional weddings, which means you cannot get away with renting them.

The groom's side of the aisle has it a bit easier, money-wise. The standard tuxedo has long been around for a very long time and its design has been adapted to make it much easier to adjust from one wearer to the next. Because it has, the members of the groom's party have the option to rent what they wear for the occasion.

But that may not make as much sense when you're in the position of having to be in multiple wedding parties on the groom's side. If you have a bunch of weddings to attend as a member of the groom's party in your future, it may make more financial sense for you to buy a tuxedo to wear to all of them.

Whether it does will come down to how many weddings you will have to attend as a tuxedo member of the wedding party, how much it costs to rent a tuxedo, and how much it costs to buy one. There's also the matter of other advantages for owning a tuxedo, which are explored in the following video:

We've built the following tool to do the math to see whether it makes more sense for you to rent or buy a tuxedo. The default data is from 2023 and 2024, so you'll likely need to update it, but that's why we set it up the way we have. If you're accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to access a working version of the tool.

The numbers for renting a tuxedo are taken from Tom Grupa's Fash article on the cost of renting a tuxedo in 2023. The number for buying a tuxedo is one we came up with through trial and error, where we sought to identify a price point near where it would make sense for the prospective tuxedo wearer to buy their tuxedo rather than rent with respect to the other default values in the tool.

If you play with the tool, you'll find that if you only change the cost of buying a tuxedo, a price lower than the $1,725 we've indicated will swing the choice in favor of buying.

The other inputs for the tool affect how the cost of a tuxedo may change over time, where we assume the value will increase due to inflation at about 3.3% a year. Whether renting or buying, paying for the tuxedo will most likely be done with a credit card, for which the interest rate we set as the default is the average credit card interest rate Bankrate reports applies as of 5 June 2024. These are both values that can change, so update them as you need when considering your own rent versus buy situation.

Outside of the cost of buying a tuxedo, probably the most influential number affecting the rent versus buy choice is the number of events for which you might wear a tuxedo. The higher this number is, the more it will swing the balance in favor of buying over renting a tux.

In the tool, the "profitability" is the benefit to you in buying rather than renting. A positive result favors buying over renting, where we've provided this result to give you an indication of how close you are to that recommendation.

All that said, if you have a lot of weddings in your future, be sure to enjoy the celebration regardless of whether you've rented or bought your tuxedo!

When we last visited Mars and its infant export economy, the Mars Perseverance Rover has collected and packaged four more rock samples on the planet's surface over the span of another Martian quarter.

We estimate the value of the samples collected during the fifth Martian quarter the rover has been on the Red Planet to be $395,544, the middle of a range that spans from $88,624 to $702,464. Through the five Martian quarters, some 23 samples have been collected in total with a combined estimated value of a little under $2.2 million. Since the end of that fifth quarter, one additional sample has been collected, so the total number of samples at this date is 24 samples in all.

As part of an initial plan to transport the collected samples to Earth, the rover has periodically deposited the samples at "depots" on Mars. The samples were to be picked up by later Mars exploration missions for export. Except that plan to send new probes and rockets to Mars to launch them to Earth has failed. That original plan proved to be both too complicated and too expensive to justify. That plan has been scrapped.

Scientists have been forced to go back to the drawing board to develop a new scheme for exporting the rock samples collected by the Mars Perseverance Rover to Earth. An official Request For Propopal for sample return missions was issued with new proposals due on 17 May 2024. The sample return mission may be significantly scaled back from the initial plan to return all samples, perhaps returning a fraction of the total number of samples collected and deposited for future export on Mars' surface. The new sample return plan is being developed to be practical.

The following table tallies the estimated value of Martian samples collected through the five quarters the Mars Perseverance Rover has functioned on the planet.

Previously on Political Calculations

• Meanwhile, on Mars...
• The Birth of the Martian Economy
• Mars Recovers from First Recessionary Event
• Mars' GDP Triples in Martian 3Q
• The Annual GDP of Mars After One Martian Year

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. NASA's Perseverance Rover Completes Mars Sample Depot. [Photo]. 30 January 2023.

After dipping in April, teen jobs rose in May 2024 to their highest level since September 2007.

The initial seasonally-adjusted estimate of Americans Age 16-19 who were counted as employed in May 2024 is 5,871,000. We have to go back to November 2007 to find a higher number of teens among the employed in the United States, 5,927,000.

In November 2007, the percentage of U.S. teens with jobs stood at 34.8% out of a population of 17,048,000. Sixteen and a half years later in May 2024, the teen employment-to-population percentage is 33.4% for a population of 17,574,000 Americans between the ages of 16 and 19. That difference points to the increased population of teens in 2024 as accounting for May 2024's higher teen employment figure.

The following pair of charts illustrates both teen employment numbers and the teen employment-to-population percentage for the period from January 2016 through May 2024.

Drilling down into the demographic data within the employed teen population, we find that since Janaury 2024, there has been a shift away from younger teens (Age 16-17) in favor of older teens (Age 18-19) in the job figures.

Meanwhile, the percentage share of the working age teen population with jobs remains some 1 to 2% below the peaks recorded for each from December 2022 to April 2023. In other words, as of May 2024, the job market for teens is neither as strong as it was in late 2007 nor is it as strong as it was just a little over a year ago, which contradicts recent claims made about teen employment in the media.

About the Seasonally-Adjusted Data

Each of the data series presented in these charts receives its own seasonal adjustment. Because of that, the numbers of working Age 16-17 year olds and Age 18-19 year olds won't necessarily add up to the totals shown for the combined Age 16-19 population. If you're looking for employment figures that do add up, you'll want to review non-seasonally adjusted data.

References

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics (Current Population Survey - CPS). [Online Database]. Accessed: 3 May 2024.

Image credit: Stable Diffusion DreamStudio Beta. Prompt: "A photo of teenagers filling out applications in an office for summer jobs in 2024. Highly detailed, 4K." It came out as more of an illustration than a photo, but it works!

It was a good week for Wall Street's bulls seeking to navigate their way through the random onset of new information in the markets. The index rose 1.6% above where it closed the previous week, closing at 5,431.60 on Friday, 14 June 2024. The index even set new record highs during the week, with 13 June 2024's 5,433.74 closing value now representing the S&P 500's highest close ever.

As for the market moving news the week held, a benign inflation report on Wednesday, 12 June 2024 was perhaps the most important story for investors in the U.S. stock market. After the report, expectations for when the Federal Reserve might begin cutting interest rates changed. The CME Group's FedWatch Tool now forecasts the Fed will hold the Federal Funds Rate steady in a target range of 5.25-5.50% only until 18 September (2024-Q3), 12 weeks earlier than what the tool projected a week ago. The tool anticipates the Fed will start a series of 0.25% rate cuts on that date, which will occur at 6-12 week intervals well into 2025 based upon how expectations changed in the past week.

The latest update of the alternative futures chart shows the trajectory of the S&P 500 running at the low end of the range that would be expected for investors focusing on 2024-Q4 in setting current day stock prices.

That relative position suggests a real potential upside for the S&P 500. Should investors reset their forward-looking focus toward 2024-Q3 to coincide with the change in the FedWatch Tool's projected timing for when the Fed will start cutting interest rates in the U.S., the stage would be set for the index to jump to new record highs.

But will it work out that way? As we've seen in the past week, expectations can change significantly with little advance warning thanks to the random onset of new information. Much like the market-moving headlines of the week that was.

Monday, 10 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• The 'good' and 'bad' news inside the US jobs report
• Oil prices up 3% to one-week high on hopes of higher summer fuel demand
• Fed minions thinking about what to do for next actions:
• Inflation, Fed meeting to give clues for U.S. market direction
• Fed's new economic projections may come with a dose of maybe, maybe not
• Major brokerages expect Fed to cut rates from September or beyond
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• China's home de-stocking push to bring developers little cheer
• BOJ minions get less bad news:
• Japan's Q1 GDP fell less than first reported on revised capex
• Japan's service sector mood hits nearly 2-year low in May
• ECB minions thinking they might not want to commit to rate cuts:
• ECB could wait several meetings between rate cuts, Lagarde says
• ECB's Holzmann voices caution on rates outlook

Tuesday, 11 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Shrinking Fed rate cut expectations to keep US Treasury yields elevated
• Oil settles higher on forecasts for strong demand
• Market expectations for what Fed minions will do at their June 2024 meeting:
• Fed expected to hold rates steady, project fewer cuts in 2024
• Fed meeting and US inflation data in focus as dollar pauses for breath
• BOJ minions thinking about keeping interest rates low:
• BOJ to keep ultra-low rates, debate fate of huge bond buying
• ECB minions say Eurozone bankers are slackers, thinking about sitting on their hands rather than cutting rates again soon:
• ECB says many euro zone banks dragging their feet on loan-loss provisions
• ECB should wait with next rate move until uncertainty recedes, Lane says
• Dow slips, but Apple surge helps Nasdaq, S&P to record close; all eyes on CPI, Fed
• Apple market cap surges $215B in rally to record high - where AAPL stands among Mag 7 YTD

Wednesday, 12 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US consumer prices unchanged in May; rate-cut expectations rise
• Oil little changed as surprise crude stock build caps gains
• Fed minions do nothing, expectations build for one rate cut later in 2024:
• Fed leaves rates unchanged, sees only one 2024 cut despite inflation progress
• Fed policymakers see just one rate cut this year, 4 cuts in 2025
• Fed's road to rate cuts clears as inflation eases
• Bigger stimulus developing in China:
• China's inflation steady, maintains pressure for more stimulus
• China central bank promotes relending to speed up sales of housing stock
• BOJ minions thoughts about keeping rates low put at jeopardy by jump in inflation:
• Japan May wholesale inflation jumps, complicates BOJ rate hike path
• ECB minions discover Euro not acting like a global reserve currency, say they'll cut rates slowly:
• Euro's reserve currency role tumbles at expense of dollar, yen, ECB says
• ECB must cut rates 'very slowly', says vice-president de Guindos
• S&P 500, Nasdaq post closing record highs after CPI, Fed

Thursday, 13 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil slips on US growth worries, ample crude supply
• US producer prices unexpectedly fall in May
• Fed minions remove potential rate cuts from U.S. election calendar:
• In new forecasts, Fed appears to bow out of the election cycle
• Fed meeting, benign inflation keep soft landing hopes alive
• BOJ minions signal they'll keep low rates, will stop buying so many bonds:
• Bank of Japan to keep ultra-low rates, may signal bond taper
• S&P notches fourth straight record close, though momentum stalls; Nasdaq gains, Dow slips

Friday, 14 June 2024

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil prices on track for weekly gain on solid demand outlook
• US home sales crumble in May on higher rates and record prices, says Redfin
• Fed minions say they'll cut rates if data tells them they can:
• Fed's Goolsbee: 'More months' of good inflation data needed
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China new bank loans rise far less than expected in May as demand wobbles
• China set to hold key rate as margin pressure, weaker yuan hamper policy easing
• Falling bond yields leave China's central bank facing tough call
• BOJ minions do what they signaled they would do:
• BOJ keeps rates steady, decides to lay out bond taper plan next month
• ECB minions getting worried by France, say they'll keep cutting rates if data tells them they can:
• ECB's Lagarde dodges question about French market turmoil
• ECB's Kazaks backs market bets on cuts if data holds
• S&P snaps four-day win streak, but gains for the week; Nasdaq, Dow end little changed

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's forecast of annualized real GDP growth rate during 2024-Q2 remained at +3.1% with no updates during the week. Its next update will come on 18 June 2024.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A Wall Street bull on a sailing ship looking at the horizon through a telescope".

Imagine you're shopping for a new vehicle, or maybe more accurately, a newer vehicle than the one you have today. With gasoline prices running high, one of the things you're shopping for in that newer vehicle is better fuel economy.

Let's say the car you have today is a real gas guzzler. It only gets 10 miles per gallon. Shopping around, you find a newer car in your price range that gets 15 miles per gallon. That may not be great, but it is certainly more fuel efficient than your current vehicle.

Now, suppose one of your neighbors is also out shopping for a newer vehicle to replace theirs. The vehicle they have gets 25 miles per gallon and they've determined they can afford to buy a vehicle that gets double that mileage.

If you and your neighbor drive the same distance every year, which one of you will save more gas after switching to drive your respective more fuel-efficient vehicles?

You can find out with the following tool, where you only need to enter the fuel efficiency numbers for your vehicles of interest and annual miles driven. If you're reading this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, click here to access a working version of this tool.

We've set the default data in the tool up to run the numbers for your hypothetical neighbor's newer vehicle. It finds they will reduce the amount of fuel they use in driving 15,000 miles per year by 300 gallons.

We'll let you update the numbers in the tool yourself to run the scenario for how much you might save for your own newer, more fuel-efficient vehicle, but if you run the suggested scenario of exchanging a 10 miles per gallon vehicle for one that gets 15 miles per gallon, you'll find you'll save 500 gallons. That's 200 more gallons per year than what your neighbor who bought a vehicle with double the fuel efficiency would save.

What if you bought the vehicle that can go 50 miles per gallon? Well, you could completely smoke your neighbor by saving 1200 gallons per year. But the question you need to answer is whether you can afford to buy that vehicle. Assuming that less fuel-efficient vehicles are more affordable than more fuel-efficient models, it's quite possible you could spend a lot less and still save more gas per year than your neighbor.

The examples for this tool came from this Vox article, which advocates for a better way for the automotive industry to communicate how fuel efficient the vehicles they sell are, but which ignores the personal finance issues of affordability and flunks the economics. The article is inspired by a 2008 paper that argues the Mile Per Gallon ratings for vehicles provide a misleading picture of their relative fuel efficiency. We figured it was easier to understand that argument by providing a tool to do the fuel savings math.

Image credit: Fuel Meter, Meter, Indication vector graphic by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.