Americans’ Ability to Pay for Emergency Expenses or Three-Month Job Loss with Cash/Cash Equivalent, by Selling Assets, by Borrowing, or Not at All by Wolf Richter • May 27, 2023 • 188 Comments 54% have three months of expenses set aside in their account. But 13% can’t pay for a $400 emergency expense.
Despite Getting Whacked by Bank Turmoil, Layoff News, Credit Crunch, High Interest Rates, and Inflation, our Drunken Sailors Spent Even More, Even Adjusted for Inflation by Wolf Richter • May 26, 2023 • 241 Comments Where does the money come from? They now out-earn inflation and dipped into their assets whose prices ballooned over the years.
Fed’s Favored Core PCE Price Index Re-Accelerates, Driven by Services, Motor Vehicles: Inflation Stuck on High, Shifts from Item to Item by Wolf Richter • May 26, 2023 • 132 Comments Not encouraging: core PCE price index refuses to come down, has moved sideways since July last year.
Free-Money Party for Corporate Profits Turns into Hangover amid Rising Costs and Pressured Revenues by Wolf Richter • May 25, 2023 • 115 Comments “We are entering an EBITDA recession”: S&P Global Ratings.
Inflation a Stickier Problem than Markets Realize by Wolf Richter • May 25, 2023 • 110 Comments Wolf Richter on inflation, consumers, the labor market, and when will these drunken sailors finally stop throwing money around, with Adam Taggart on Wealthion.
Inflation Dishes Out Another Nasty Surprise: All Heck Breaks Loose in UK Services CPI & Core CPI, with Scary Monthly Spikes & Multi-Decade Year-over-Year Highs by Wolf Richter • May 24, 2023 • 92 Comments Food Inflation Raged at 19%. But energy prices plunged. In response, UK government bond yields spiked, pricing in higher BOE policy rates.
Delinquencies in Subprime Auto-Loan-Backed Securities Have Second-Worst April Ever, Behind only Lockdown April: The Cost of Free Money by Wolf Richter • May 24, 2023 • 61 Comments In the free-money era, subprime auto lenders took huge risks amid seething demand from yield-chasing investors.
Prices of New Houses Drop Further, Builders Stimulate Sales with Price Cuts, Pulling Demand from Previously Owned Homes by Wolf Richter • May 23, 2023 • 121 Comments That arbitrage is now happening among homebuyers. But regular homeowners wanting to sell haven’t figured it out yet.
Rent Inflation Re-Accelerates to Red-Hot, All Three Now Agree: Zillow Asking Rents, What Big Landlords Said, and Actual Rents Tracked by CPI by Wolf Richter • May 22, 2023 • 240 Comments Debacle on the Inflation Front: The Fed’s victory lap about having licked rent inflation was premature.
Meta Fined “Unprecedented” $1.3 billion by EU = 17 Days of Pre-Tax Income, LOL by Wolf Richter • May 22, 2023 • 65 Comments LOLs keep piling up. Cost of doing business. Nevertheless, Meta came out swinging against it.