Kohl’s Spirals into Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown, Blames “Constrained” Consumers, but it’s Just Losing them to Ecommerce, which is Booming by Wolf Richter • Mar 11, 2025 • 62 Comments The stock plunged 24% today to lowest since 1997, down 89% from peak, and has joined our Imploded Stocks.
Labor Market Dynamics Tighten Further. Job Openings, Quits, Hires Rise, Layoffs & Discharges Drop, Back Fed’s Wait-and-See by Wolf Richter • Mar 11, 2025 • 12 Comments The low point was in September. The Fed faces a scenario of re-accelerating inflation amid a retightening labor market.
Price of Natural Gas Futures Up 140% Year-over-Year: One More Reason for Inflation to Not Back off Easily by Wolf Richter • Mar 10, 2025 • 93 Comments Natural gas accounts for 42% of electricity generation. It’s feedstock for fertilizers. It’s widely used for heating. And 19% was exported in 2024.
Why the Fed Considers “Pausing or Slowing” QT “Until the Resolution of the Debt Ceiling Situation” by Wolf Richter • Mar 8, 2025 • 78 Comments The minutes mentioned it. New York Fed’s Perli added some background. The Fed will likely provide details at its March meeting.
Federal Government Layoffs & Quits Begin to Show up in the Jobs Data, Barely Dent Solid Labor Market by Wolf Richter • Mar 7, 2025 • 103 Comments Civilian employment at the federal government accounts for less than 1.9% of total payrolls.
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$54 Billion in February, -$2.21 Trillion from Peak, to $6.76 Trillion, Lowest since May 2020 by Wolf Richter • Mar 6, 2025 • 83 Comments Quantitative Tightening has shed 25% of total assets from peak and 46% of pandemic QE.
Explosion of Imports Causes Trade Deficit to Spike by 96% in January YoY on Tariff Front-Running by Wolf Richter • Mar 6, 2025 • 79 Comments Surge of imports not a sign of weak demand, on the contrary, but imports deduct from GDP.
Is This the Beginning of the Second Wave of Inflation? by Wolf Richter • Mar 5, 2025 • 121 Comments Companies can’t pass on those higher prices? What a bummer. But if they can without losing sales, it’s off to the races. See 2021/2022.
U.S. Demand for Gasoline Faces Long-Term Structural Problem: Plunging Per-Capita Consumption by Wolf Richter • Mar 4, 2025 • 140 Comments Even as miles driven inched to a record and the population surged, gasoline consumption in 2024 was where it had been 20 years ago.
U.S. Production & Exports of Crude Oil & Petroleum Products Hit New Record in 2024, Imports Dipped Further, SPR Refilling Halted in February by Wolf Richter • Mar 4, 2025 • 55 Comments The new mantra among frackers: “Discipline” to not trigger another oil-price collapse through overproduction. Drill Baby Drill, but not too fast.
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.
