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A few charts worth discussing
“China isn’t the only country with a ‘not enough babies’ problem.”
Other charts worth pointing out
Canadian interest payments by level of government
2026 loan & high-yield return by rating
Household air conditioning by country
U.S. & Japan – exchange rates vs. interest rates
Japanese equity ownership by shareholder type
Employment and wage growth across income levels
Savings-to-spending ratios by generation
10-year U.S. Treasury yields vs. Effective Federal Funds Rate
S&P 500 Index and 10-year bond return correlations
North American merger & acquisition volumes
S&P 500 Momentum Index – relative total returns & volatility
S&P 500 Index Shiller P/E ratio vs. U.S. labour productivity
Historical ROE – S&P 500 Index vs. TMT sector
Relative performance of the best-performing U.S. equity vs. the rest of the market
Non-U.S. equity performance during major technology sector sell-offs
Style performance during major technology sector sell-offs
US Factory Activity Expands at Strongest Pace Since 2022
The Institute for Supply Management’s July manufacturing gauge rose to 55.6, the highest since May 2022, according to data out Monday. Readings above 50 indicate growth, and the sector has now been above that mark for seven consecutive months.
The gauge for production rose to 58.5, its highest level since late 2021, while the employment measure indicated manufacturers increased headcount for the first time since September 2023. New orders growth — a sign of demand — also picked up.
The manufacturing sector has gained momentum this year, with factories benefiting from resilient consumer demand, solid business investment and government outlays on defense.
All but one manufacturing industry reported growth in July, with chemical products being the only sector that contracted. Printing, apparel and electrical equipment were among the industries that grew.
The report reflects a volatile month in the Middle East. The interim peace deal between the US and Iran effectively collapsed, driving up oil prices. After a brief respite in hostilities, fighting in the five-month war flared again toward the end of the month as attacks spread throughout the region.
High Prices
Factories continued to face longer lead times on supplier deliveries and rising prices for raw materials. ISM’s prices index fell to 71.1 in July, the lowest in five months but still significantly higher than at the beginning of the year.
The report pointed to price pressures including tariffs and increased costs for petroleum-based products due to conflict in the Middle East.
ISM’s gauge of exports for July was the highest since March 2022 and a measure of imports climbed to its best mark since June 2021.
This week’s fun finds
The 25 Sculptures That Define the Modern Age
Sculpture occupies an odd place in contemporary art. Because of their sheer physical presence, sculptures are often harder to show, not to mention more difficult to sell: This fact forces the medium into a secondary role behind painting, especially in a business so obsessed with the markets. And yet, sculpture is arguably the art that the public, throughout history, has tended to interact with the most, even if we’re not always paying it much attention. Sculpture is an indelible part of the global landscape. It’s in our public plazas, our corporate office parks. Celebrated (and often meticulously preserved) as a form of creative expression across the world, sculpture goes back to the prehistoric age, to early peoples’ use of stone flints to carve anthropomorphic figures out of mammoth ivory. Every culture since has made its own totems, sometimes to mark its triumphs and tragedies, and sometimes for reasons that are less clear.
To choose the 25 most important works of sculpture made since 1945, we asked a panel of experts to gather at the New York Times building in March. They included the artists Firelei Báez, 45; Charles Gaines, 82; Adam Pendleton, 42; and Arlene Shechet, 77 — each of whom has, to varying degrees, explored and advanced sculpture in their work — along with Ruba Katrib, 44, the chief curator of MoMA PS1 in Queens and the former curator of the nearby SculptureCenter, the only museum in New York explicitly dedicated to the medium. Any task that ends in anointing something “the most important” is highly subjective and should be considered with a heavy dose of skepticism; a different group would have come up with different selections, and it’s easy to imagine the following list turning out differently had this same group met at a different time on the same day.
