Bill

Yup. US Non-Farm Payrolls come in at +178K.

As I like to do when we are in a US employment data-heavy week, here is some more data to throw into the mix. US employment tax receipts are a rough-cut measure of employment income growth in real-time and they continue to be solid. FWIW.

lolz

Lots of employment data coming out this week - so I thought I would add employment taxes to the pile... US employment still looks ok in February.

Who doesn't like turbos? @FinEconGlobal

The Redemption Arc is complete. Sam Darnold Redemption ✅ - playoff wins vs the Rams (loss in 2025 playoffs) & Patriots ("seeing ghosts" quote from MNF game) - 1st QB from 2018 draft class (Mayfield, Allen, Jackson) to appear in Super Bowl & win a Super Bowl Seattle Seahawks SB XLIX Redemption ✅ - beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl gaining a small measure of revenge for the loss due to the Malcolm Butler INT.

👀

Still some juice left in this short in 2026!

2026 starts off with a strong January...

The analytics nerds have crowned the current Seahawks team as having the 5th best NFL season ever. If the Hawks win against the Rams & then possibly meet (& beat) the Patriots in the Super Bowl - it would complete the Sam Darnold redemption tour (Rams beat his Vikings in the playoffs last year, & the "I'm seeing ghosts out there" quote came as the Jets QB in a MNF game vs the Pats. Darnold would also be the 1st QB to win a SB from that QB-loaded 2018 NFL draft (Baker, Josh, Lamar). A Seahawks win vs the Pats would also be redemption for the Malcolm Butler INT in SB XLIX. Might not happen, but what if it did? ftnfantasy.com/nfl/week-20-dv…

Last one for 2025. Slowing employment income trend (though still positive y-o-y). December can be funny due to year-end bonuses/tax true-ups. We'll see how 2026 shapes up in the coming months...

The analytics nerds were early and got this right - the Seahawks are the no. 1 team in the NFL rn. They have finished as the no. 1 seed in their conference only 3 times in their history (2005, 2013, 2014) & all those years led to a Super Bowl appearance.

Happy Retirement Day to the 🐐!!

Thru yesterday - December numbers are slowing. (December can be a difficult month for comps due to year-end bonus activity & various tax-true-ups - but still looks slower to me).

@mg10012 @161phi As discussed yesterday on Spaces - this is the less-well-known part of how AIG got into trouble during the GFC. The unit that managed this operation was AIG Global Securities Lending (GSL). The life insurance subs provided securities to GSL (primarily bonds) & GSL loaned these securities to banks/broker-dealers in return for cash collateral that GSL then invested for higher yields. These GSL investments got as high as ~20% of life insurance subs total assets in 2008. AIG FP's losses were $30 billion, IIRC & gives a sense of the mix of losses between AIG FP & AIG GSL. Good read about AIG's GFC issues here: aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…

You can see from the table below why TX & NY state insurance regulators were worried about the solvency of several of AIG's large life insurance subsidiaries...

Also under-reported part of the AIG story, the Texas Department of Insurance was drawing up legal papers to seize several AIG Life Insurance regulated subsidiaries due to solvency concerns ... From Roddy Boyd's AIG book " Fatal Risk"

Small cap value having a month....

$BRK Greg Abel setting up his new organizational structure as he prepares to take the reins from Buffett. - creating a division called Consumer Products, Service & Retailing and appointing a CEO to run it (reducing direct reports to Abel) - new CEO of GEICO (Combs off to JPM) - new CFO (follows Abel from BRK Energy where he was SVP/CFO) - new General Counsel. finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire…