SFR Permits, Low Hire Low Fire, PMI, Consumer Confidence, SpaceX, Porto's, and who was Dee Brock?
So, what happened this week? The numbers, that is.
Housing came down on the weak side.
Single-family home permits were down for the 5th consecutive month to 845,000. It was a 4% drop.
That isn’t for the month; it’s annualized based on the number of permits filed in September.
Five months ago, it was 892,000. Actual permits for 2025 were 909,280.
That’s what mortgage rates in the 7s will do.
We are sticking with low hire, low fire.
Unemployment claims fell to 194,000, continuing a trend of weekly claims below 200,000.
Here’s a hitch: continuing claims increased 25,000 to 1,728,000.
As of the last day of August, there were 7,079,000 job openings, down 256,000 from the month before.
Not many folks are firing, but not many are hiring.
Manufacturing is still moving right along, per the Purchasing Managers' Index for manufacturing. Remember, anything over 50 is a positive outlook.
It came in at 56.0, up ever so slightly from 55.9.
Services came in at 57.9, down from 58.8, but still strong expectations.
And the composite reading came in at 57.6, down from 58.4. Some details…
New order growth was the best in 4 ½ years, and employment increased at the second-fastest pace in more than four years.
Selling prices rose at their fastest rate since August 2022. Great news for sellers, bad news for buyers.
So, what do consumers think?
As it turns out, they think it sucks.
The U. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for October came in at only 48.0, down a smidge from September and down 10.4% from a year ago.
Buying conditions for durable goods drove a good part of the sentiment, with that segment dropping 18% because of higher interest rates.
Basically, business is booming, but consumers strongly disagree.
Talk about Blast-Off
SpaceX reported a profit for Q3 of this year.
For most folks, that’s not unusual. In fact, if you have a bank loan, it’s pretty much expected.
However… the same quarter in 2025 posted a loss, so expectations weren’t high.
But Elon exceeded them significantly.
They posted profits of $4,400,000,000 on sales of $14,600,000,000.
Oddly enough, the capital expenditures number, or capex, for the quarter was $19,600,000,000.
Cash flow is just a little unbalanced.
Porto’s to Open an IE Location
It’s true – Porto’s Bakery & Café is looking to open its first Inland Empire location in 2028.
In true Porto’s fashion, they are building it from scratch. No building in a box for them!
I covered the founders in a Report in June, 2024. Here is a link.
At any rate, folks from the IE won’t have to drive to West Covina any more.
Before West Covina opened up, people were driving to Glendale. That’s a 40 mile drive for a pastry. However…
When you dropped a box of Porto’s pastries off at a prospect, they took your call that afternoon. Try it.
It will be located in Ontario, near Archibald and the 10.
That’s going to be a long couple of years.
What in the name of Samhain?
All Hallows Eve, or Halloween, that is. As it turns out, Samhain, a Celtic celebration of the end of the harvest season, was the precursor to Halloween.
Not to be left out, Pope Gregory III took a page out of the church marketing book and proclaimed November 1 All Saints' Day in the 8th century. Why do I bring this up?
Saturday is Halloween, a seasonal event (I’d call it a holiday, but no one takes it off - yet) that creates its own economy.
It's become a $13,500,000,000 business, according to the National Retail Federation – the NRF - topping last year's record $13, 100,000,000.
About 74% of Americans plan to celebrate, spending an average of $115.14 per person. Wow.
At any rate, where does it all go?
About $4,400,000,000 for costumes, $4,300,000,000 for decorations and $4,100,000,000 for candy.
And don’t leave out your fur-baby – they are getting $920,000,000 worth of attention.
More info from the NRF:
34% of shoppers will look for things they can reuse, 31% will comparison shop, and 26% will search for coupons or sales.
That’s our family - OfferUp and hand-me-downs!
Almost half of consumers now start shopping in September or earlier, compared with only 34% a decade ago.
And the Christmas decorations have been in Lowe’s for a while now.
Who was Dorothy Faye Sala?
She was better known as Dee Brock, born June 7, 1930, in Covington, Oklahoma, and raised in Texas.
Her dad was a union organizer for Sinclair Oil, and her mom worked at a bank.
Their names were Lester and Vera; if those aren’t Silent Generation names, I don’t know what is.
And Dorothy is such a Boomer name.
She dreamed of being a professor in New York City.
She earned an English degree in 1950 and married Bob Brock in 1952. He worked for the Dallas Times, and she began modeling, including gigs for Dr. Pepper, The Texas Farmer Stockman magazine, and gowns for Neiman Marcus.
She then started her teaching career, and by 1972 she had a faculty position at El Centro College, and in 1973, she developed an English compositions course that she could teach on local television.
It was called “Writing for a Reason”. 1,400 people enrolled; it was her passion.
She was ultimately hired by PBS in Washington, D.C., and in 1981, launched the Adult Learning service broadcast on more than 200 stations around the U.S.
But that’s not all.
While she was working on her teaching career, in 1960 she was approached by Tex Schramm, the general manager of a football team. Since his expansion team had not won a game in its first year, he thought it would be a good idea to have cheerleaders.
They wouldn’t be paid, of course, so Mrs. Brock suggested they have high school cheerleaders instead.
Each year, Mrs. Brock would pick the squad of girls and boys, wholesomely dressed and trained to whip up the crowd.
When the team moved to a new stadium, adults were hired so Mrs. Brock was free to dress her cheerleaders in a much more abbreviated style.
On September 17, 1972, seven women debuted in white shorts, blue halter tops, a short white vest, along with the go-go boots and cowboy hats.
You guessed it: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
Dee Brock was the director, and she had hired a professional choreographer to orchestrate the routines.
She left in 1975 and earned her Ph.D. in American Literature and subsequently joined PBS and built the televised education series before there was even a thing called remote learning.
Mrs. Dee Brock died last month at the age of 96.
Per her son:
“That was her thing: education, literacy, and reading – helping others achieve what they needed to or wanted to.”
As Miracle Max would say, “That is a noble cause!”
Over the course of my career, I have found that it usually is ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things, and like Mrs. Brock, at the time they may not know it is extraordinary. She was much prouder of her impact on education, and only later in life did she come to appreciate her impact on professional cheerleading.
Have a happy Halloween and focus on doing something extraordinary. Oddly enough, you may not even know you are doing something extraordinary, so in the words of a boss I had 36 years ago, ”just do something”. You never know what the impact will be.
