Walt Disney Co.’s “Marvel’s The Avengers” earned $80.5 million yesterday in U.S. and Canadian theaters, making it the second-biggest single-day gross in box-office history, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.
- Since 1881, the average annual returns for all twenty year periods that began with a P/E at the level it is today (around 22) have ranged from -2%/yr to +7%/yr with an average of just 3% per year.
- The US Treasury will shed roughly $5 billion worth of its stake in AIG, further reducing its ownership in the bailed-out insurer to 63 per cent, further reducing its commitment to AIG from its initial $182 billion down to $39 billion.
- The average duration of unemployment increased to a record 41 weeks in November and remains at 39 weeks, more than double the 15-week average since the U.S. began collecting the information in 1948, according to BLS data compiled by Bloomberg.
- Those jobless for six months or longer made up 41% of the total.
- More Americans are applying for disability than ever, which in April was +225,000, rather than unemployment.
- More than five million people have been added to disability coverage since President Obama took over three years ago.
- Using the same “participation rate” from just 1 year ago, the nation’s true unemployment rate may be as high as 9.0% when you add back an estimated 1.5 million frustrated job seekers that have stepped to sidelines according to the Department of Labor.
- The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage nationwide fell to 3.84%, compared to just 4 years ago when the average rate was 6.04%.
- As of 3/31/12, there were 2.4 million existing homes for sale in the USA compared to just 3 years earlier (3/31/09) when the number of homes on the market was 3.7 million according to the National Association of Realtors.
- In the first 6 months of fiscal year 2012 (10/01/11-3/31/12), the US government spent $1.84 trillion as compared to the entire fiscal year 2001 in which the US government spent $1.86 trillion, an amount that at the time was an all-time record.
- Outstanding education debt in the U.S. has reached about $1 trillion, according to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- While state budget gaps are declining, 16 states and the District of Columbia still have projected shortfalls totaling $16.2 billion for fiscal 2013, which for most states begins on July 1.
- Investors withdrew $357 million from commodity funds in the week ended May 2, according to data from EPFR Global, which tracks money flows.
- Gold and precious-metals outflows totaled $349 million, the same firm said.
- If weather remains mild, total power consumption will be 1.8% lower from July through September from a year earlier, the Energy Department said.
- US consumer credit soared by $21.4 billion in March on expectations of $9.8 billion rise, or the fastest monthly expansion since March 2001.
- A modest $5.1 billion from the total was from real credit, or revolving, credit-card type debt bringing total revolving debt to $804 billion, or to a level first crossed in January 2005.
- The balance, or $16.2 billion of the total, was non-revolving debt, the type of debt used to fund car purchases and push the student loan bubble well into its $1+ trillion record territory, bringing total non-revolving debt to a remarkable $1.739 trillion – an all time record.
- Francois Hollande defeated French President Nicolas Sarkozy as voters handed control of the second-biggest European economy to the Socialists for the first time in 17 years.
- Spain is in deep trouble as the total Spanish banking loans are now equal to 170% of Spanish GDP and the banks are drawing a record €316.3 billion from the ECB (up from €169.2 billion in February).
- Even the Spanish citizens are running for the gates as they are are pulling their money out en masse with €65 billion leaving the Spanish banking system in March 2012 alone.
- Sales of passenger cars by Shanghai GM–the U.S. auto maker’s joint venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.– fell 2.2% to 94,101 vehicles while sales at SAIC-GM-Wuling, GM’s joint venture with SAIC and Liuzhou Wuling Motors Co., rose 22% to 117,829 vehicles, a record for the month, GM said in a statement Monday.
Sources: Morningstar, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Moody’s, S&P, Financial Times, Telegraph, and many others. DISCLAIMER: The information contained herein is based on various sources considered to be reliable; however, we do not represent that the data is complete and its accuracy is not guaranteed.