Charlie Bilello A net 51% of US Banks are now tightening their lending standards, the highest since 2020 and at levels that have coincided with recessionary periods in the past.
3. Overall Loan Growth of U.S. Banks 3.6%
WSJ By Telis Demos One way for American banks to offset the pressure coming from rising deposit costs would be to boost business: More loans, even if earning less individually, could still lead to overall revenue growth.
But right now, their lending is expanding very slowly. As of the latest Federal Reserve weekly tally, overall loan growth at U.S. banks has been 3.6% on an annualized, seasonally adjusted basis so far in the third quarter—well below the long-term average of 7%, according to Autonomous Research analyst Brian Foran.
4. Ten Largest Companies Percentage of S&P….Hit 40% in 1990 and 2000…..34% Last
The ten largest companies in the S&P500 make up 34% of the index, and these ten mega-cap companies have an average P/E ratio of 50, see chart below.
Torsten Slok, Ph.D.Chief Economist, PartnerApollo Global Management
5. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Diverge
Bespoke As crude oil topped $90 per barrel for the first time since last November, it’s interesting to see how prices of natural gas have seen little movement. It used to be that the two commodities moved somewhat in unison with each other, but that has not been the case this year. As shown in the chart below, since crude oil really started to take off at the end of Q2 it has rallied more than 28%. Nat gas meanwhile not only hasn’t rallied, but it’s down over 3%!
As a result of the recent divergence between the two, the ratio of crude oil to natural gas has surged this year and currently sits at over 30. Besides earlier this year, the only time since 1990 that the ratio between the two was as high or higher was back in the period spanning late 2011 through early to mid- 2013.
Josh Watzkin on why the second mistake is worse than the first:
“One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. This is a hard lesson for all competitors and performers. The first mistake rarely proves disastrous, but the downward spiral of the second, third, and fourth error creates a devastating chain reaction.”
There was a sea change this around too…for a little bit.Last year during the rising inflation and interest rate environment, growth stocks got killed while value stocks finally had their time in the sun after a decade of tech stock dominance.
Yet here we are again with the same huge growth stocks leading the way. The Nasdaq 100 is up 40% this year after falling 33% last year.
The Man Group performed some research on the top 100 stocks in the S&P 500 each decade going back to the 1960s to show that many of the leaders from the previous era typically fall from their perch:
This happened every decade…until the 2010s.
The top stocks more or less remained the top stocks.
History tells us tech stocks should underperform in a meaningful way eventually.
… moments ago we got the latest Chinese data dump for the month of August, which showed that – as expected – the world’s 2nd biggest economy has rebounded from the bottom and may be stabilizing. Here are the highlights:
August Retail sales +4.6%, beating exp. +3.0%, Last +2.5%
August Industrial Output +4.5%, beating exp. +3.9%, Last +3.7%
Jan-Aug Fixed Investment +3.2%, missing exp. +3.3%, Last 3.4%
Jan-Aug Property Development investment -8.8%, Last -8.5%
China apparent oil demand +22.7% to 14.74mm b/d, unchanged from July
New property construction falls -24.4% YTD y/y to 639MM sq.m
August new home prices, excluding affordable housing, -0.29% m/m
Psychology Today Studies show curiosity is a powerful tool for mental health and well-being. Jennifer Gerlach LCSW
Curiosity can be thought of as the psychological equivalent of a healthy heartbeat.
Strong curiosity is a sign of mental health.
There are many ways to cultivate curiosity, such as revisiting childhood joys or doing something unexpected.
There is something magical about walking through a path in the fall looking up at the leaves, or finding a song for a moment that you want to lean into to understand where the artist stood. This enchantment is curiosity.
Research points to the many benefits of curiosity from improvements in memory (Gruber, & Ranganath, 2019), creativity, and precious “flow” states (Schutte and Malouff, 2020). It is associated with higher life satisfaction (Proctor et al., 2011) and, contrary to the adage that curiosity kills the cat, has also been linked with aging well (Sakaki et al., 2018).
When we feel safe, we are free to explore. When we feel in a space of threat, our focus narrows and we lose interest. Evolutionarily, this makes sense. At moments during which our ancestors faced the threats of their day, often predators, it would not have been wise to stare in wonder at the leaf. We are the descendants of the people who didn’t get eaten.
Today, most fears we face are social and last longer than a run from a bear. Yet, we have many barriers to feeling safe and being curious. Repeated traumatic experiences or anxiety can put us in a space where the threat system is hyper-activated making it difficult for us to access our drive for discovery.
Loss of interest in activities is a hallmark symptom of depression. Even schizophrenia is often associated with negative symptoms marked by a decrease in seeking pleasurable activities, the byproduct of anhedonia, avolition, and emotional blunting.
Conversely, recent research shows that curiosity may be a protective factor against anxiety and depression (Zainal, & Newman, 2023), as well as that creative interventions can improve curiosity (Schutte and Maloff, 2022), garnering individuals a whole host of benefits.
Perhaps we can think about curiosity as the psychological equivalent of a healthy heartbeat. As we struggle with mental health, it’s common for us to lose our pulse with our curiosity. Similarly, by engaging curiosity through exercises of creativity there is much to be gained.
While curiosity is not often discussed as a key therapeutic tool, many therapists utilize it. As a psychotherapist, my office space is designed to encourage a hammock swing for my clients to sit on, a treasure chest filled with varying objects, and art supplies.
Most other therapists also take this into account when cultivating a therapyenvironment. Art therapists have engaged curiosity and creativity in healing for decades, and certain therapy styles, such as compassion-focused therapy, involve activities to activate the soothing/affiliative system in which we are often free to be curious.
So how can you grow your sense of curiosity? Here are five ways:
1. RevisitChildhoodJoys. When you were a kid, did you like to fly kites? What about riding your bike around the neighborhood? These things still exist. Engaging joys from the past can lift our curiosity.
2. Do Something Unexpected. Routine drives away opportunities for new things. Sometimes, it is worthwhile to take a turn into something unplanned. This could be something as simple as stopping at the apple butter stop as you are driving home or taking a different route to work.
3. Pick Something Random and Learn About It. Many of us have had interests in the past that we let go of. Did you stop learning about space when you realized that your life path was not headed toward becoming an astronaut? Curiosity is not about learning only things that have practical significance. The world is wide and there is so much to marvel at.
4. Ask Questions. Curiosity thrives on wonder. Sometimes we have questions that we never ask. We don’t allow ourselves to open those doors. It’s OK to ask questions. Questions often deepen connections.
5. Explore a New Place. You don’t have to get on an airplane to travel. Maybe there is a restaurant you have never eaten at or a park you have never visited. Allowing yourself to experience these new places could foster curiosity.
1. Two Break-Out Charts…10 Year Treasury and Energy SPDR
XLE energy etf
2. Gasoline Prices Hit Resistance for at these Levels for Last 12 Months
3. Shrinking Stock of Crude Oil Reserves
Nasdaq Dorsey Wright
4. T-Bills…Retail Buys $1 Trillion of New Notes in Three Months
Bloomberg-With rates on cash and cash-like instruments at the highest in more than two decades and offering more income than benchmark US debt or stocks, assets in money-market funds have swelled to a record. But nowhere is that appetite for liquid, high-yielding instruments more apparent than in the market for T-bills where investors have snapped up more than $1 trillion of new notes in just the last three months.
9. Depopulation of Italy…Number of Deaths Exceeding Births
For the first time, the number of births in a year fell below 400,000 – representing an average of 1.25 babies per woman, according to official figures for 2022.
This means that the replacement rate is now negative, since the number of deaths currently exceeds the number of births – 12 deaths for every seven births.
Our brain is like a computer processor: It has a finite amount of processing power, or intellectual resources, that can be used in a given moment. Any competing task (or emotional state) that occupies too much of our intellectual firepower impacts our ability to concentrate, focus, problem-solve, be creative, or use other cognitive abilities; as a result, our functioning IQ is temporarily lowered.
To demonstrate this principle, try walking while counting down from 1,000 by sevens (1,000, 993, 986, etc.). You will soon stop walking. Why? Your brain has to work so hard to do this math that it doesn’t have enough resources left to tell your legs to put one foot in front of the other.
Most common competing tasks do not have a significant impact on our ability to work or study. Most of us can do homework while listening to music and can become absorbed in a book while eating.
However, some psychological habits, like the 5 below, consume such huge amounts of intellectual resources that they diminish our cognitive capacities. Few people are aware that these psychological habits have such a detrimental effect, so they are unlikely to pause what they’re doing—and this can seriously affect a person’s ability to perform a task at full capacity.
1. Brooding
Replaying upsetting, frustrating, or distressing events over and over again—especially when doing so frequently or habitually—can make our minds race with thoughts or stir us up emotionally, severely taxing our intellectual resources. In addition to impacting our cognitive functioning, brooding (also known as ruminating) can present real dangers to our emotional and even our physical health. (See “The Seven Hidden Dangers of Brooding.”)
We all feel guilty from time to time. When we do, we typically apologize or take some kind of action to resolve our guilty feelings. However, when guilt is not addressed and repeatedly pops into your mind, it creates a huge cognitive distraction that seriously impairs cognitive functioning. The solution is to put guilty feelings behind you as best you can. (See “The Secret of Effective Apologies.”)
3. Ineffective Complaining
Most people are likely to share their frustrations with friends rather than discuss them with someone who could help resolve them. The problem is that each time we tell our tale, we become frustrated and annoyed. Anger and frustration require significant processing power and enable ineffective complaints to become a regular drain on our brainpower.
4. Overanalyzing Rejection
Rejection creates emotional pain that significantly impacts our mood and has a serious impact on cognitive functioning. It also causes us to become self-critical, a habit that further damages our self-esteem, extending the duration of our emotional distress—and with it, our compromised cognitive abilities. (See “10 Surprising Facts about Rejection.”)
5. Worrying
Many people don’t consider worrying harmful. “I’m just a bit of a worrier,” we might say with a wry smile. But worrying creates an uncomfortable and unpleasant emotional state, and it can be seriously distracting. When we’re worried about something, it tends to take priority in our minds, and push everything else to the side. Fortunately, it’s easier to address and resolve worry (by thinking through potential solutions) than it is anxiety. (See “The Difference Between Anxiety and Worry.”)
1. Global Fund Managers Biggest Switch Ever into U.S. Stocks Out of Emerging Markets
Marketwatch-By Steve GoldsteinGlobal fund managers have just made their biggest shift ever into U.S. stocks and out of emerging market equities, according to Bank of America’s long-running monthly survey released Tuesday.
3. U.S. Tech Stocks Outperformance Vs. Global Tech Stocks
Top Down Charts Key point: US tech stocks massively + persistently outperformed global tech stocks
4. Equal Weight S&P and Energy Sector
Jim Reid Deutsche Bank A few other things look different YoY than YTD. Today’s CoTD looks at two interesting YoY lines that are now broadly flat.
Firstly, we have oil, which in June was c.-45% YoY, but is now +0.3% YoY. That’s helping to reverse the sharp pace of falls in the headline US CPI over the last 12 months or so, and is topical for tomorrow since rising gasoline prices mean we expect a +0.6% mom print for headline CPI – the highest since June 2022. See our economists’ preview here.
Secondly, the equal-weight S&P 500 is now ‘only’ up +0.5% YoY, which relative to history is a notable underperformance, especially when you think of the buoyant equity mood this year. The same index is up +4.3% YTD but all of those gains were made by January 11th.
As we know, the mega cap tech stocks mean the actual S&P 500 is +16.8% YTD and +9.2% YoY with the “Magnificent Seven” (equal-weighted) almost solely responsible and +95% YTD and +45% YoY.
What does it say about the economy that the equal-weighted S&P 500 is actually now flat since April 2021? Does it suggest more difficulties adjusting to the higher rate world than broader market cap indices in 2023 suggest? Or is reducing the weight of those mega caps data mining too much and is big tech an important part of the modern US economy? For context the Russell 2000 is -2.67% YoY and back to November 2020 levels. Since then, consumer prices are +16.7% higher so a dramatic underperformance in real terms.
5. AAPL Support $170-172…Then 200day Moving Average
The policy was introduced after the controversial arrest of two Black men at one of the company’s Philadelphia locations. The men had been asked to leave a store after one was denied access to the bathroom. They were arrested by police after sitting down to wait for a business meeting. Witnesses captured the incident on video and it went viral.
At the time the policy was announced, Schultz said he didn’t want the company to “become a public bathroom” but they didn’t want people to feel “less than” if they were refused access.
“We serve 100 million people at Starbucks and there is an issue of just safety in our stores, in terms of people coming in who use our stores as a public bathroom,” Schultz said. “And we have to provide a safe environment for our people and our customers. The mental health crisis in the country is severe, acute and getting worse.”
“We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people,” Schultz explained. “I don’t know if we can keep our bathrooms open.”
This summer, I visited my 95-year-old grandfather in his hometown of Osaka, Japan. I wanted to spend more time with him and learn about the activities that keep him so healthy and happy.
A retired cardiologist, his creative, community-driven outlook and purposeful way of living have always inspired me. He’s a great example of how to age gracefully.
Here are his eight non-negotiables for a long and happy life:
1. He takes an early morning walk
My grandparents are early risers. By 5 a.m., they’ve already begun their morning stroll. They usually walk for 30 minutes to an hour, and get in at least 7,000 steps.
Whether they’re hiking mountainous trails to the Minoh Falls or doing laps around the Ikeda neighborhood, my grandparents’ use their walks to start their days from a place of strength.
My grandfather has my grandmother to boost his emotional well-being. But he also maintains strong ties to people in his global community, including his grandchildren in the U.S., through this time online.
4. He writes in his blog
Since 2014, he has spent a few minutes almost every day writing his thoughts, experiences and insights on his blog. It now has well over 1,000 posts.
It’s easy to lose our drive when we don’t see immediate results, but my grandfather’s blog is a culmination of a few minutes of writing spanned over several years. It’s a good reminder of the value of small, consistent actions.
5. He creates art
My grandfather is an accomplished artist. Every day he sits down and draws his self-portrait. As he carefully sketches each line, shading and detail, he uses the time to get a better understanding of himself.
In a world where we are often on the go, seeing him take the the time to slow down and look inward has motivated me to do the same.
6. He makes time for new hobbies
During the pandemic, my grandfather started gardening after being inspired by the flowers and plants he saw on his walks.
And at my grandmother’s suggestion, he started playing the recorder, a woodwind musical instrument, because he thought it would help with his breathing and swallowing.
It’s never too late to learn new skills. I love how my grandfather remains open-minded and adventurous, always seeking novel experiences to fuel his curiosity — and is never afraid to fail.
7. He takes multiple naps
After all that exercise, he makes sure to stop and refuel several times per day in order to maintain his energy.
He usually takes his first half-hour nap in the morning, around 8 or 9 a.m., and often falls asleep again in the afternoons while reading.
His self-awareness to know when to take these breaks has been a major contributor to his longevity.
8. He eats indulgent meals
My grandfather is incredibly active, but he also has a real love for life’s pleasures, including savoring red meats, cheeses and drinking fine wines.
However, on the healthier side, my grandmother always serves a variety of vegetables in her homecooked Japanese meals, like her delicious curry.
While Western norms might label some of his dietary choices as unhealthy, his exceptional well-being at 95 is a testament to the fact that many different factors contribute to longevity, and balance is perhaps the most important.
In Japan, we have a concept called “ikigai,” or “sense of purpose.” There is no single precise set of instructions for good health and happiness. The most important thing is to find out what your purpose looks like, and like my grandfather, pursue that path with care, intention and joy.
Mika Cribbs is a content creator and graphic designer from Los Angeles. She currently works at GUESS as a content producer, and has worked in fashion, beauty and entertainment. Beyond the screen, you’ll find her trying new foods, traveling, and cherishing moments with family and friends.
8. Country Garden China’s Largest Property Developer has $100B Ghost Town in Malaysia
Forest City, a luxury estate in southern Malaysia, is one of the most controversial developments in the country’s history. Six years into development, the $100 billion estate is already a ghost town. Marielle Descalsota
Forest City, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Marielle Descalsota/Insider
The development is in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, just north of Singapore. It was built by Country Garden, China’s largest property developer.
Forest City is huge: It spreads across 1,740 hectares, or four times the size of city-state Monaco. Around 700,000 people were initially expected to live in the estate.
But as of 2019, only around 500 people lived in the estate, according to a 2019 report by Foreign Policy. An expert who declined to be named for security reasons told me the estate’s population has since grown to several thousand — which is still less than 5% of the expected number of residents.
Country Garden declined to comment on the number of residents in the development.
9. The State of Betting in the U.S.-USA TODAY….Is it me or the entire NFL is now Vegas?
Where in the United States is sports betting legal, and where can you place your wagers online? Check out our interactive map of the U.S. for updated legal news and recent state sports betting developments.
