Underlying Inflation
While headline inflation numbers looked scary in March due to energy and tariffs, Federal Reserve Governor Waller noted in a mid-April speech that “underlying inflation”—when you strip out the temporary effects of tariffs—is running very close to the 2.0% target. This suggests that once the current geopolitical and trade shocks settle, the core inflationary “fever” has broken.
Source: Federal Reserve
Wages Outpacing Inflation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the “Usual Weekly Earnings” report for Q1 2026 today. Median weekly earnings for full-time workers rose by 3.4% over the last year. This growth outpaced the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which rose 2.7% in the same period. This indicates that for the first time in several cycles, American workers are seeing a net gain in purchasing power rather than just keeping pace with rising costs.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Resilient Corporate Earnings
First-quarter earnings reports are in full swing and are showing some resilience. The earnings “beats” are outnumbering the “misses”. Companies are reporting that while they’ve had to deal with higher interest rates (currently holding steady at 3.50% – 3.75%), they are managing margins better than expected through AI-driven cost savings and robust demand.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Homebuyers Are Back
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home rose 10% for the week and were 14% higher than the same week one year ago. This, after buyer demand had briefly sunk below year-ago levels. The increase was led by conventional purchase loans, up 11% over the week. One reason could be tied to the decline 55 basis point decline in 30-year mortgage rates over the past year.
Source: CNBC
The Annoyance Economy
Everyone knows the feeling of being stuck on hold, or spending time clicking through an endless series of pages to cancel a subscription, or screening spam calls, or trying to change a flight. A new estimate puts the cost of dealing with robocalls, hidden fees, and customer service chatbots that can’t solve most problems at $165 billion. Stanford economist Neale Mahoney has predicted that “Scammers will be more adept at using A.I. to scam us than we will be at using it to detect scams.”
Source: New York Times, Groundwork Collaborative
Birth Of YouTube
On this day in 2005, the co-founder of YouTube uploaded the first-ever video at 8:27 pm. It was titled “Me at the Zoo”, a 19-second clip of him standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo. It currently has over 300 million views and fundamentally changed how the human race consumes information (and cat videos).
Source: Fox News
Denver Nuggets Odds
Game 3 versus the Minnesota Timberwolves is tonight. The current point spread is the Nuggets -1.5. The sportsbooks are currently placing between 8.3% to 11% chance of the Nuggets taking it all. That puts them fourth in line behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, followed by the San Antonio Spurs and the Boston Celtics.
Source: Sporting News
