Bill’s By The Number$

Posted by: Lisa Navarro | Posted on: February 14th, 2022 | 0 Comments

BIG SHOES – There are 505 individual stocks in the S&P 500. The 41 largest capitalized stocks in the index as of the close of trading last Friday 2/11/2022 had a larger collective market cap than the remaining 464 stocks. Since the S&P 500 is a cap-weighted index, the largest capitalized stocks carry a disproportionate impact on the index’s performance calculation. The S&P 500, consisting of 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry group representation, was used as the stock measurement. It is a market value weighted index with each stock’s weight in the index proportionate to its market value (source: BTN Research).

INTEREST RATES RISING – Between 12/14/2016 and 12/19/2018 (a 2-year period), the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates 8 times, with each hike increasing rates 0.25 percentage points (an overall increase of 2 percentage points). Over the same 2-year period, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose from 2.54% to 2.77% (source: Treasury Department).

TREASURY NOTE – The yield on the 10-year Treasury note closed at 2.03% last Thursday 2/10/2022, ending a streak of 633 trading days of closing yields for the 10-year note below 2%, i.e., 8/01/2019 through 2/09/2022. From 1946 to 9/06/2011, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note did not close below 2%. 10-year Treasury notes have been traded in the United States since 1790, i.e., 232 years of trading (source: Treasury Department).

BAD GUESS – As part of a 10-year budget projection made by the Congressional Budget Office in January 2012 (i.e., 10 years ago), our national debt, which was $15.223 trillion as of 12/31/2011, was forecasted to reach $21.665 trillion as of 9/30/2022. Our actual national debt is $30.036 trillion as of 2/10/2022 (source: CBO).

FINALLY IN THE BLACK – The US government ran a $119 billion surplus in January 2022, breaking a streak of 27 consecutive months of deficits, and its first surplus month during the pandemic (source: BTN Research).

SURPRISE! – When the government reported on 2/04/2022 the jobs number from January (a gain of +467,000 new jobs), they also revised November’s job gains (from +249,000 to +647,000) and December’s job gains (from +199,000 to +510,000), resulting in +709,000 “new” jobs from the 2 months (source: Department of Labor).

DREAM HOME – Ground was broken in the United States on the construction of 111,600 single-family homes in June 2021, the largest monthly total nationwide since September 2006. The 1.12 million housing starts in all of calendar year 2021 was the largest US total reported since 2006 (source: Census Bureau).

HOW WE LIVE – Of the 8.8 million US households created in the 5 years ending 12/31/2021, 90% were “owner” households while 10% were “renter” households, i.e., “owner” households grew by +7.9 million to 83.5 million, while “renter” households grew by +914,000 to 44.0 million (source: Census Bureau).

NO GASOLINE NEEDED – Electric vehicle sales globally increased by +112% in calendar year 2021, rising from 3.0 million to 6.3 million worldwide (source: Benchmark Mineral Intelligence).

ARE YOU REALLY HUNGRY? – A “food price index” that measures the change in food prices internationally was up +19.6% on a year-over-year basis as of 1/31/2022 (source: Food and Agricultural Org. of the U.N.).

A LOT MORE IN THAN OUT – For every $1 of goods that US companies exported to Chinese buyers in 2021, American consumers imported $3.35 of goods from Chinese manufacturers (source: Department of Commerce).

FORTY YEARS – Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was up +7.48% year-over-year as of 1/31/2022, the highest annual rate recorded in the US since February 1982 when year-over-year inflation was up +7.62%. Just 1-year ago (1/31/2021), year-over-year inflation was up +1.40% (source: Department of Labor).

CREDIT TECHNOLOGY – An average American worker has increased his/her productivity by +52% in the last 22 years, i.e., an average worker can complete in 1 hour, 58 minutes as of 12/31/2021 the same amount of work that it took him/her 3 hours to finish as of 12/31/1999 (source: Department of Labor).

STATE-BY-STATE – The unemployment rate in 12 of the 50 US states dropped to their lowest levels ever in December 2021 based on statewide data tracked since January 1976. The 2 states with the lowest jobless rate were Nebraska (1.7%) and Utah (1.9%). California’s 6.5% jobless rate is the highest in the nation as of December 2021 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).

YOUTH MOVEMENT – Super Bowl # 56, yesterday’s football matchup between the underdog Bengals and the favorite Rams was the first Super Bowl in history to feature head coaches who are both under the age of 40. The Bengals’ Zac Taylor is 38 while the Rams’ Sean McVay is 36 (source: NFL).