My Investing Muse

Business Insider has provided an  article  listing store closures by some of the leading retail players in the USA. Here is an extract from their news article dated 3rd May 2023: More than a dozen major retailers have said they will close US stores in 2023, a combined total of over 2,100 locations. Amazon, Bath & Body Works, Walmart, and Foot Locker are among the chains shutting down stores. Bed Bath & Beyond is planning to close 896 locations — the most of any retailer on the list. Some of the ones listed with store closures: Bed Bath & Beyond: 896 stores Foot Locker: 545 stores Tuesday Morning: 487 stores Bath & Body Works: 50 stores Gap and Banana Republic: 46 stores Walmart: 22 locations Party City: 31 stores Best Buy: 20 stores Amazon: at least 8 stores Big Lots: 7 stores The RealReal: 6 stores Macy's: 4 stores Target: 4 stores JCPenney: 2 stores While some are trying to pivot into e-commerce & with a lesser reliance on retail outlets, most have cited ...

  FOMC has released the minutes of its 02-03 meeting on 24 May 2023. Here are my thoughts on this matter. Screenshot from the latest FOMC meeting minutes My investing muse The Fed is expecting a recession and the unemployment rate forecast is expected to increase. Real GDP is projected to decline. The government has given their outlook for the coming months and the recession could be “mild”. I am not sure if we need to wait that long as the debt ceiling crisis looms. Different news sources have already suggested that the Fed would run out of funds by early June 2023. The debt ceiling will eventually be raised. Global concerns surround the magnitude and extent of collateral damages that will ripple through the US and cascade to the international market. Fitch Ratings has put the US long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) as negative. USD erosion ~ Yahoo Finance  article With the decline of the USD as a global reserve currency (to the recent 47%), who else could s...

  The latest unemployment data was released on Friday (2nd June 2023): Average hourly earnings (MoM) actual is 0.3% compared to the forecast of 0.4% Nonfarm payrolls actual is 339K compared to the forecast of 180K The unemployment Rate actual is 3.7% compared to the forecast of 3.5% Despite the increase in nonfarm payroll (employment), there are more people who are unemployed. The chart above from St Louis Fed shows that “Unemployment level - permanent job losers” is trending upwards with May 2023 hitting 1.588 million. The other gap that we need to identify is between the US average hourly earnings against Consumer Price Index (CPI). CPI is commonly used (together with PCE) to identify inflation experienced by the economy. We hope to see the US average hourly earnings higher than the CPI (inflation). If the opposite happens, this means that our earnings are lesser than the inflation. Based on YoY data, US average hourly earnings reached 4.3% whereas the latest CPI (inflation) data...