Household Debts, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies, Collections, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies: Our Drunken Sailors’ Debts in Q4 2024 by Wolf Richter • Feb 13, 2025 • 114 Comments More people, more workers, more income, more debt.
PPI Inflation Accelerates to +3.5% yoy, Worst in 2 Years, Driven by Services amid Massive Up-Revision of Services Inflation by Wolf Richter • Feb 13, 2025 • 95 Comments Inflation is festering and accelerating in services (two-thirds of overall PPI), not in goods.
Beneath the Skin of CPI Inflation: Worst Month-to-Month Acceleration of CPI since Aug 2023, on Spikes in Used Vehicles, Non-Housing Services, Food, Energy by Wolf Richter • Feb 12, 2025 • 100 Comments Inflation has been going in the wrong direction relentlessly month-to-month since June.
Treasury Market’s Inflation Expectations Become “Unanchored” by Wolf Richter • Feb 11, 2025 • 134 Comments Why the Fed vigorously backpedaled on further rate cuts and pivoted to wait-and-see: Long-term interest rates matter.
There Hasn’t Been Much if Any Reduction in WFH in over Two Years, Despite the Hype about RTO by Wolf Richter • Feb 10, 2025 • 174 Comments Hopes that Return to Office will bail out office CRE seem premature: data on office attendance and Working from Home.
Used Car & Truck Prices Heading Higher on Tight Supply, Strong Demand, after U-Turn in mid-2024 from Historic Plunge. Used EV Prices Jump by Wolf Richter • Feb 8, 2025 • 88 Comments Already putting pressure on CPI inflation. Now comes tax-refund season.
Huge Upward Adjustment to Employment & Labor Force as Wave of Immigrants is Finally Included, Unemployment Drops, Wage Growth Accelerates: The Annual Revisions Are Here by Wolf Richter • Feb 7, 2025 • 65 Comments The Fed, after complaining about missing immigrants in labor market data, now has further support for its pivot to wait-and-see.
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$42 Billion in January, -$2.15 Trillion from Peak, to $6.81 Trillion, Lowest since May 2020. Bye-Bye BTFP by Wolf Richter • Feb 6, 2025 • 64 Comments Quantitative Tightening has shed 45% of Pandemic-QE. Bank liquidity facilities at or near zero.
The Fed’s QT Could Go on for a Lot Longer: The Tools Are in Place, incl. the Revived Standing Repo Facility by Wolf Richter • Feb 6, 2025 • 40 Comments QT has drained ON RRPs to their normal level of near-zero, while QT hasn’t even touched reserve balances yet.
Trade Deficit in Goods Worsens to All-Time Worst in 2024, Small Surplus in Services Rises, Overall Trade Deficit Worsens by 17% by Wolf Richter • Feb 5, 2025 • 133 Comments Goods deficits & Corporate America: Vietnam jumps to #3 on transshipments from China to dodge tariffs. Tiny Ireland jumps to #4 on trade invoicing to dodge US corporate income taxes.
