A weakening relationship between nat gas and temps In the US, natural gas has struggled for nearly two years to cope with a storage surplus. Meanwhile, solar power generation has jumped to new highs. These are among the reasons that natural gas prices have languished despite growth in US electricity demand. And growth in solar capacity has weakened…

Value in Vegas has kept consumer demand resilient The number of people traveling by air in the US continues to make records, but some airlines have posted disappointing results. That's because pricing has been weak as airline capacity has grown faster than demand. Andrew Didora does expect that airline capacity growth will slow after the summer, ea…

Slam dunk for streaming media in acquiring NBA rights Earlier this month, Head of US Media and Entertainment Research Jessica Reif Ehrlich hosted her annual Media in Montauk conference. As is typical, discussions at the conference were most focused on long-term trends and strategy. Women's sports got a lot of focus, especially as the WNBA has seen …

Job gains will slow but healthcare has room to run The labor market has remained robust, adding an average of about 250k jobs monthly since the start of the year. But services jobs account for the bulk of the recent growth and at this point, demand in many parts of the service economy have fully recovered. Additionally, structural changes and shift…

Volume picture better for restaurants than packaged food Food companies are seeing negative volumes, both in their grocery businesses and their food service businesses. The volume picture looks a bit better for the largest restaurants but it's also sluggish. Consumers seem to be economizing more than they were a year or two ago, one way is by eatin…

A weaker yen can boost exports and tourism profits The Japanese Yen hasn't been at these levels vs the US dollar since the late 1980s. There are two key drivers of this Yen weakness. One is the interest rate spread. The second, and probably more important longer term, is structural outflows from Japan and the biggest component of this is outward FD…

What's old is new again: bundling streaming services Entertainment and theme park spending growth has been weaker as demand normalizes from the post-reopening surge. But despite difficult comps, domestic attendance for key parks is flat to up with small and new attractions as a key driver. Indeed, we will get an important major new attraction in Or…

Buy now pay later slowing but still disrupting Rising card delinquency rates, particularly among lower income consumers, are one of several pieces of data that have led some to take a negative view of the US consumer. But Mihir suggests delinquency rates have started to decline recently and discusses why that's been the case. Ultimately, employment…

A slow but steady hand on the cut button The eventual impact of higher rates on credit, the rise of private capital, slow loan growth and forthcoming tighter regulations have all weighed on bank multiples to varying degrees. But these attractive multiples relative to history, combined with a view that rates probably have peaked, keep Ebrahim Poonaw…

Strong demand and difficult supply Over the last two decades, copper demand was inexorably linked to China. At times, China accounted for 110% of global copper demand growth. Now, countries are rebuilding their supply chains at home, building data centers and decarbonizing. While the source of copper demand has changed, demand growth remains compel…

Millennial home buying continues but in some new places New home sales are down only marginally from 2021 levels despite mortgage rates rising roughly 300bps over that period. Demand from Millennials entering peak home buying age, wealthy boomers and domestic migration have helped to offset affordability challenges created by higher rates. Existing…

Big portion of retailers hoping for lower rates Home improvement retail has been challenged by a number of factors of late, from pandemic pull-forward to weakness in existing home sales to inflation that's crowding out other spending. Lower rates would help and millennial home buying continues to provide some support for sales. Robby discusses the …