“The number of banks on the FDIC’s “Problem Bank List” increased from 52 to 63. Total assets held by problem banks rose $15.8 billion to $82.1 billion. Problem banks represent 1.4 percent of total banks, which is within the normal range for non-crisis periods of 1 to 2 percent of all banks.“ CRE looks to be causing some problems – “The noncurrent rate for non-owner occupied CRE loans of 1.59 percent is now at its highest level since fourth quarter 2013, driven by office portfolios at the largest banks.“ Source ..read more

Some stats tracking the state of the CTA industry, which appears to be in poor health. “In January we saw the largest decline in the number of Associates, i.e. individuals working in the Futures Industry. We recorded a decline of 687 individuals no longer seeking to do business ..read more

Long way to go? Source: themarketear ..read more

Jim Grant’s speech at Strategas’ 17th annual Macro Conference conference (free, requires sign-up ..read more

Fairly large divergence. Source ..read more

“A weak-link problem is where success depends upon the quality of the worst component, whereas a strong-link problem is where it depends upon the quality of the best.“ Understanding which is which is a useful thinking tool ..read more

Soft elements of NFIB small business survey have fallen hard while hard elements have held up ..read more

Angus Deaton rethinks ..read more

Nice WSJ piece on the pace and challenges of building data centers to meet booming demand. “Bill Vass, vice president of engineering at Amazon Web Services, said a new data center pops up somewhere in the world every three days ..read more

Those interested in the sector this is a good Atlantic piece on the rising cost of vet care in the US (spoiler alert: private equity and corporate ownership). AVMA actually has a handy tracker of vet visits and revenues ..read more