🇷🇺🇨🇳 Monthly Exports to Russia by Country

If not for China, this lunacy about collapsing Russia might've actually worked...

I have no earthly idea why Western leaders believed China would do anything else. They do understand China can hear them saying "Russia first, then isolated China," right?

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🇺🇸 The Goldman Sachs Housing Affordability Index remains quite low...

Why? Prices are up. Wages are stuck. Mortgage rates are elevated (except for most of the people holding them, who are therefore disinclined to move).

Thanks to insane zoning laws and even more insane housing regulation, we have a housing shortage. This is exacerbated by rising construction costs. And illegal immigration is aggravating the problem with limited supply and stagnant wages.

Something has to give.

🏠 CHART WATCH 🏠

🇺🇸 Mortgage Payments vs. Rent as a % of Household Income (1970-2025)

🏚 CHART WATCH 🏚

🇺🇸 Which states pay the most for electricity?

⚡️ CHART WATCH ⚡️

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF ($RSP) has essentially gone nowhere over the past year.

All the action is occurring in the megacaps & the AI bubble.

I'm really trying to drive this home: breadth is not going well.

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🇺🇸 These are the only counties that voted more Democratic in 2024 than in 2020, shaded by percent increase.

Can I just say Colorado and Utah are two of the sketchiest states in the Union?

🇺🇸 CHART WATCH 🇺🇸

🇺🇸 Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.B) has been raising cash for three years.

12 straight quarters of net sales.

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 Thank God they saved all those people by moving them from mental hospitals to prisons.

We could've just reformed the hospitals, but I guess that's too big an ask for Boomers & their parents.

📉 CHART WATCH 📈

🇮🇱💥🇱🇧 The prediction market for how long Israel's aggression against Lebanon is going to last...

70% of the crowd thinks it continues through Wednesday. There aren't any further days yet, so we might interpret this as Wednesday through indefinitely.

🎱 CHART WATCH 🎱

💥🇮🇱💥 How many countries will Israel bomb this November?

Half the market says 2. I suppose that's fair. 1 is extremely optimistic. 3 is a real dark horse at 12%. They could do 3 no problem if they get going...

🎱 CHART WATCH 🎱

🇪🇺 European inflation came in slightly over consensus.

Headline inflation was 2.1% year over year, while core inflation reached 2.4%.

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🇰🇷 The South Korean KOSPI Index is putting in quite the performance year-to-date, appreciating by 75%.

That's about 80.5% in dollars, propelled by strong growth in its two largest companies—SK Hynix (251% YTD) and the 4th largest Asian corporation, Samsung (109%)—as well as in defense, shipbuilding, batteries, and fintech.

KOSPI is the second best performing primary national index over the past quarter century, averaging 7% per annum.

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🌎 The Returns Leaderboard for the month of October 2025 (in USD)

🥉 EM Equities 🇰🇷🇻🇳 (+4.2%)

🥈 The NASDAQ 100 🇺🇸 (+4.7%)

🥇 The Magnificent 7 🇺🇸 (+5.6%)

🔽 Japanese Yen 💲 (-4.1%), Bitcoin 💰 (-4%), Chinese Equities 🇨🇳 (-3.8%)

🔼 CHART WATCH 🔽

🇺🇸 Who will be the 2025 NFL Champion? Kalshi's prediction market points to the Chiefs.

Kansas City Chiefs 18%
Detroit Lions 12%
Buffalo Bills 11%
Green Bay Packers 10%
Philadelphia Eagles 10%
Indianapolis Colts 8%

🏈 CHART WATCH 🏈

🇺🇸 America's Wealth by Generation

This is something else. They'll point to compounding and that's a multiplier, but in reality, it's more the fact that Boomers did two key things: (1) they bought assets in an era of gratuitous public spending and thus immense inflation and (2) they demanded the government borrow from the future to prevent a real recession in their lifetimes.

What's the result? The Silent Generation's depleted pensions still carry more weight than the sum of Millennial wealth.

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 Restaurant stocks are taking a beating in 2025...

🍽 CHART WATCH 🍽

🇺🇸 Accordingly, the Restaurant ETF is approaching its Liberation Day lows.

$EATZ has suffered a 20% drawdown from its all-time high in July.

🍽 CHART WATCH 🍽

🇺🇸 Action in the indices today...

The Nasdaq led. The S&P was also positive. The Russell lost a third of a point; the Dow lost almost half of one.

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPY) is up about 14.6% this year. A lot of that upside has been in the technology sector ($XLK) is up 26.62%, and the Mag 7 ($MAGS) are up 25.56% YTD.

The S&P 500 Excluding Technology ($SPXT) is only up 9.88%, and excluding the Mag 7, the S&P 493 is up 12.10% on the year.

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐