New York Fed’s Measure of “Inflation Persistence” Nixes Friday’s Idea that YoY PCE Inflation Cooled, Using Same Data by Wolf Richter • Mar 3, 2025 • 49 Comments The game of inflation Whack-A-Mole: price pressures shifted from housing to non-housing services and core goods.
Drill-Baby-Drill for 20 Years: US Natural Gas Production and Exports via LNG & Pipeline Rose to New Records in 2024 by Wolf Richter • Mar 2, 2025 • 72 Comments Prices rose from the collapsed levels in the prior year and are back where they’d been in 1996, down by 70% from the peak in 2005.
No, Consumer Spending Didn’t Plunge in January and Auto Sales Didn’t Collapse, or Whatever, But the Huge Seasonal Adjustments Might Have Gone Awry by Wolf Richter • Feb 28, 2025 • 89 Comments Year-over-year, consumer spending jumped by 5.6% and retail sales by 4.8% in January. So there’s that.
PCE Inflation Hits 4.0% Month-to-Month Annualized, Worst since March. 3-Month PCE Hits 2.9%, Worst since April. But Massive “Base Effect” in Services Cools YoY Increases by Wolf Richter • Feb 28, 2025 • 30 Comments December, prior months revised higher. Goods prices jump month-to-month by most since August 2023, turn positive for first time in a year.
In the South, Pending Home Sales Plunge to Record Low, just as Inventories in Florida & Texas Balloon. Push US Pending Sales to Record Low by Wolf Richter • Feb 27, 2025 • 168 Comments In the West, Midwest, and Northeast, sales hobbled along near record-lows. Housing demand got shot in January. Prices are way too high.
Demand for Electricity Takes Off. US Power Generation by Source in 2024: Natural Gas, Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, Solar, Geothermal, Biomass, Petroleum by Wolf Richter • Feb 27, 2025 • 112 Comments Amid surging demand from data centers (AI, cloud, crypto) and increasing share of EVs.
Inventory of New Houses for Sale Highest since 2007. Builders Push Mortgage-Rate Buydowns, Price Cuts, and Incentives by Wolf Richter • Feb 26, 2025 • 46 Comments What homebuilder Taylor Morrison said about the costs of mortgage-rate buydowns v. actual price cuts.
FDIC Ends Disclosing Total Assets of Banks on “Problem Bank List,” as Disclosure Might Suddenly Trigger a “Disorderly Run” by Wolf Richter • Feb 26, 2025 • 96 Comments Are disclosures of “unrealized losses” on bank balance sheets next?
Future of the Fed’s Balance Sheet: Fed’s Logan on How Assets Might Shift from Longer-Term Securities to Short-Term T-Bills, Repos, and Loans after QT Ends. MBS Entirely Off the List by Wolf Richter • Feb 25, 2025 • 53 Comments This would be like a reverse Operation Twist.
Apple Announces Server Manufacturing Plant in Houston, Adding Weight to Eyepopping US Factory Construction Boom by Wolf Richter • Feb 24, 2025 • 88 Comments The rethink about manufacturing in highly automated US plants is one of the big changes coming out of the pandemic. Industrial robots cost the same anywhere.
