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For those wondering where all the retail and institutional money came from/is coming from to fund the SpaceX IPO and subsequent dramatic advance in its share price (myself included!), we got one likely answer today…

I wrote two days ago (link) about the potential adverse impact of rising freight and old corrugated container (OCC) costs on the publicly traded containerboard producers in 2Q. This morning, the third-largest North American containerboard…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in May (4.2% YoY) as inflation continues to surge following the Iran war. As a…

I recently hosted a call with several U.S. boxmakers. Containerboard and box industry conditions have been problematic following the pandemic demand bubble: U.S. box shipments are back down to 2015 levels (link) and inflationary pressures…

The Federal Reserve published its Beige Book survey this afternoon (link), which comes out eight times per year. The Fed noted increasingly bifurcated consumer spending across income groups amid “affordability pressures.” “Higher-income households remained resilient…

I wrote last week about the historically low personal saving rate in April (link), the result of declining real income (inflation growing at a rate in excess of income). Indeed, real disposable personal income fell…

The Office of Financial Research (OFR) published a piece last week titled “Affiliate Repo” (link) that may not be a page-turner for many readers but which highlights the broken state of U.S. bank regulations in…

In today’s Personal Income and Outlays release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) was the personal saving rate, which measures the percentage of disposable personal income that Americans are saving. The saving rate has…

The FDIC published its 1Q26 Quarterly Banking Profile this morning (link). In it, the FDIC noted that the banking industry’s loan growth rate of 7.1% was the fastest since 2Q23. The industry’s rapid and accelerating…

As long-term global government bond yields move ever higher amid concerns about persistent inflationary pressures and rising government deficits and debt, it’s worth revisiting the changing composition of U.S. Treasury ownership. One of the largest…