Sitemap - 2024 - Random Walk

Riffing on debt themes, prediction themes, ecomm themes

Silver linings in VC-land

Riffing on the theme of service shrinkflation

Of gig-work and entrepreneurship (for better and for worse)

Mowing my own damn lawn

[Republished] 2022 Year-in-Review

[Republished] The secret to growth is . . .

8 Charts about AI

Checking in on Private Credit

Doing more with less

November 22, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

HODLers HODL, and revisiting themes

Pouring cold water on compute (maybe)

When Walmart speaks, we listen

Commercial real estate turning a corner (and other real estate charts)

White collar stagnation (revisited)

Consumer fintech says "everything is fine"

One simple fix to save the housing market

End of the insurance premium hike cycle

6 Interesting Asides (with Charts)

More than meets the eye

Getting more productive, or just harder to measure (or both)

Yes, it's different this time

Unicorns are real, right?

The posterchild for pandemania excess has returned ~55x since it was left-for-dead

Where are people moving, and the real escape from NY (plus other real estate charts)

Electioneering data

Me & Mr. Prof. Jones

Can't keep extending and pretending forever, right?

Notes from Hurricane recovery

Uncle Sam's Immigrant Nursing Brigade (reprise)

Six charts no one expected to see when rates went up

The Almighty Consumer continues to be fine

Grocery meets healthcare, and other real estate desiderata

Another BigCo winning from AI

Riffing on themes

Apollo's moonshot

Google loses ground to ChatGPT

October 13, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

No more Miss Lonely-Deals

Blowout jobs report gets a blowout

How're the banks (reprise)

It's a renter's market out there

Going nuclear (but for real this time)?

‘More reliant than ever on Gov’t aid’

Holiday shopping bonanza

Peddling dismisinformation about Private Capital

September 28 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

New school lending, to old school venture: A conversation with Billy Libby of Upper 90

It's never too early to go public

Real Estate Desiderata

Congestion on my mind

Part-time hustler

September 21 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Too little, too much or just right?

Actually, delinquent auto loans aren't consumer stress (maybe)

Are rate cuts a solution in search of a problem?

Second order effects of unemployment

Spending > Incomes

September 15, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Three charts to inform and delight

The secret to Y'all St. (and Europe's fade)

Maybe things really are getting worse?

Bankruptcies spike!

Buying cheap tchotchkes on the internet (reprise)

September 8, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

AI is no Cisco

Job openings go down (but maybe not)?

Real estate dispatch

10 charts from VC-land

August 31, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Rates went down, and the homebuyers shrugged

BNPelle of the ball

The Palmetto State, a place of business

Don't call it a comeback (for EVs)

Undisputed beneficiary of rate cuts

Misery is supposed to love company, so why can't we get along? [Republished]

August 17, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Walmart is A-OK with the cautious consumer

Extra liquid wealth

Canada's population skyrocketed, and so is (youth) unemployment (for now)

Reindustrialized shrugged

Is normalization turning intro stress?

August 10, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Smaller households, smaller homes

Latest from AI 'Bubble or Not?'

Tales from private capital markets

Fundamentals, positioning, or both?

Temporary layoffs and other mysteries

August 3, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Hitting bottom, a case for optimism

Getting old is what we choose to do (republished)

Meta in India

No one's hiring, no one's firing, no one's quitting

Polymarkets for the people

Breaking up with China, consumer goods edition

July 27, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Getting old is what we choose to do

Home prices are at an all time high(?)

The bought-out becomes the buyer-out

Netflix is undefeated (reprise)

Secondary discounts, slightly less discounted

July 20, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Prosecutors go on crusade, and the poor people lose

Some up, some downs

Insurance and Private Credit, two peas in a pod

Banks reporting for duty (part deux)

Big banks reporting for duty

July 12, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Insurance prices don't always make total sense, but it's not climate change

No Country for Young Children

What lies beneath the unemployment numbers?

Bears are out again, even for AI

Conversation with Kling (Take 2)

Private capital is borrowing time (and investors are happy to lend)

Offices haven't hit bottom, yet

Labor market desiderata

A pleasant surprise about energy consumption

June 29, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Second-order effects of inelastic demand

Netflix is undefeated (still)

Auto prices are coming down (reprise)

It's never too early to go public

Home prices hit a record high

June 22, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Open border 'saved' the economy (reprise)

Solar putting in a hard day's work

Stagnation unlocked, so now what?

Banks are playing it safe, sort of (audio)

Banks are playing it safe, sort of

The Brits noticed that Healthcare Makes All the Jobs (audio)

The Brits noticed that Healthcare Makes All the Jobs

June 15, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

More tales from de-dollarization

Impossible marks, cars edition

Impossible marks

June 8, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Endless Scroll!!!

Private capital under pressure (republished)

Time to make gainz

People hate density, and love the 'burbs (reprise)

There is no 'vibecession'

Private capital under pressure

June 1, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Renewables carrying load

Home prices coming down (reprise)?

Insurance premiums are going up (reprise)

White collar stagnation

May 25, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Selling picks n' shovels in a gold rush

Quick check on the cautious consumer

Is the worker shortage over?

People hate density (and love the 'burbs)

How much do migrants deflate wages

May 17, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Rate cuts help equities, how exactly?

Data centers need more power (reprise)

Maxed out to the max

Startups are shutting down

Companies trimmed the fat (audio)

Companies trimmed the fat

May 12, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

The hivemind is worried about consumer credit

Real Estate Dispatch, CRE edition

Real Estate Dispatch, single family edition

(Still) no exits for private capital

What's really going on in the labor markets

A Tale of Two Economies (Part II)

A Tale of Two Economies (Part I)

April 20, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Consumer retailers are cutting headcount

Riffing on themes

Checking in on the banks (redux)

Retail sales are still strong

Never bet against Zuck

April 13, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Sohn Conference, Part II

CMBS enters spring with a roar

Regional Bank opines on the real reckoning

Sohn Conference, Part I

Couldn't build more data centers if we wanted to (maybe)

Rise of robots (in China)

April 6, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Feeling lucky

A senior's life for me

No news is good news, jobs edition

Big buyouts

Here in my (compact) car

March 30, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Checking in on consumer credit

National Nursing Home v. Finance Bros (republished)

A firehouse of statistically commonplace text

Labor market is tight, but it's not entirely strong

Big Cities making a comeback?

National Nursing Home v. Finance Bros

March 23, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

ENDLESS SCROLL!!! (Take 2)

Builders are building

CA revises its job numbers

It's a data center world, and we're just living in it

Checking in on extend and pretend

March 16, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Social media is only getting bigger

Trade me-up, trade me-down

How're the banks?

Home values are coming down

Netflix is undefeated

March 9, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

More mysteries of Chinese shopping apps

No one is quitting, and other oddities of a bull run

Data Centers Need More Power

Consumer credit, including fintech, still pretty OK

Superbowl ads work except when they don't

March 1, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Serious delinquencies rise (as expected)

A capital-lite economy

Healthcare Domestic Product

Credit is getting loose

Childcare costs are still pretty high

A tale of two housing types

Feb. 23, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

BNPL delinquent or not?

Endless scroll

No exits for private capital

E-commerce is still growing

Visualizing the shift in CRE lending

Feb. 17, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Small businesses are pretty OK

The investment straw that stirs the drink

Gone fishing (audio edition)

Gone Fishing

BNPL contains multitudes

Extend-and-pretend

Feb. 9, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Adult in the room (audio edition)

Grocery is an advertising business

Adult in the room

Very sharp investors

5 charts on consumer credit (audio edition)

5 charts on consumer credit

Mixed Signals from the Labor Market (Audio Edition)

Mixed signals from the labor market

Insurance will continue to get more expensive

Feb. 4, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

7 Charts on Real Estate Loan Performance

A multi-armed bandit

3 observations about small banks, fintechs and BNPL

A nation of introverts?

Real Estate Rundown (residential edition)

Is the economy firing on all cylinders?

3 Charts on Venture Capital

Jan. 26, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Catching up on the week that was (in charts)

Solar power is the future of power

Is liquidity getting tight?

Upwardly Mobile are Less Upwardly Mobile

Daily Data Podcast: Amazon is the fairest market place in the land

Amazon is the fairest marketplace in the land

Jan. 13, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

Medical service costs can sneak up on you

The Bandwagon Effect

A new EV king

Consumers borrowed a lot (and other consumer sundries)

Startups earn their valuations (or die trying)

Healthcare (still) makes all the jobs

Healthcare (still) makes all the jobs

Apple v. the UK

Jan. 5, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads

VC Status Check in 5 Charts

Random Walk at Night: School of Brad Hargreaves

Commercial RE Debt is . . . Manageable?

Going out less, but spending more (reprise)

The Great Replacement (reviewed)

Cash flew to safe assets, but where did it fly from?