Good morning. Probably the most interesting story crossing the headlines today is that the S&P erased its losses so far this year and is right now above where it closed out 2024. While the inflation number out this morning … lower than anticipated … is nearing the Fed target, it is unclear when rates will next be cut. Prior to the inflation data release, CME Group showed consensus odds for a June cut dropped to 10% … and a July cut just under a “toss up.” What is, of course, beneficial is the tariff delay gives retailers enough time to better prepare for the Christmas shopping season … but let’s hope this is a more permanent move rather than something we will be revisiting before the end of the summer. The concern of many countries is exports … and I was surprised by the numbers put out by Visual Capitalist. The claim is that while the U.S. has its “exports at a share of GDP” at 11%, China is only slightly above that, at 14%. But other countries face greater pressures as the UK comes in at 23%, Canada is at 26%, Mexico at 33% … and the EU a whopping 37%. Daily Shot also indicated some interesting numbers out related to website visitors … as the leader (by far) is Google with 136 billion monthly visitors worldwide … almost twice that of second place YouTube and more than 10 times the number of those visiting third place Facebook! When you look around at new hires at your company it might be easy to see a higher-than-normal number of women … and assume some sort of DEI is in play … but you could very well be wrong. In a surprising (to me) table by the National Center for Education Statistics, it seems a greater number of women than men are receiving Bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees, Doctorate degrees and Law degrees (with Medicine and MBAs about dead even). And the greater amount of hiring based on this academic improvement should follow. That will about wraps it up for today as I relax … after witnessing an incident this morning on the highway. It seems a canoe wasn’t strapped properly on top of a jeep … fell off when the driver made a lane change … and blocked the highway during rush hour. People were angry … beeping horns … and shouting not nice things in their best Philadelphia accents … all because of a broken canoe … for which the anger was obviously a case of: … rowed rage. Have a great day, Joseph G. Witthohn, CFA Have any questions? Please contact info@teamemerald.com
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