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…

Signs of consumer spending weakness, particularly on discretionary items, have been evident for the past two years, well before the Iran war. The reasons why are clear: essentially no growth in inflation-adjusted income since the…

I wrote earlier about diminishing demand for U.S. Treasurys among price-insensitive foreign central banks (link), and noted that one of the largest sources of demand for longer-dated Treasurys from 2022 onward has been hedge funds…

Enormous and growing global government debt and budget deficits are once again in focus amid sharply rising interest rates. In years and decades past, price-insensitive holders of U.S. Treasurys such as foreign central banks and…

Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer and fifth-largest U.S. retailer by sales, reported its 1Q26 results this morning. The U.S. housing market has been struggling for years largely owing to the lack of…

One of the telltale signs of an asset price bubble is high margin debt among institutional and retail investors. Check. FINRA reported that margin debt provided by broker-dealers hit $1.3 trillion for the first time…

I’ve written about the ongoing struggles of all manner of consumer-related companies aside from those that cater mainly or exclusively to the rich, and noted that one of the explanations is stagnant inflation-adjusted income (link)….