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Indicator Bingo

Planet Money is watching 3 indicators this year:

  • Fed rate (splintering opinion on rate changes + a new (“yes man”) chair incoming)
  • Electric rates (as affordability signal, rates up 7% compared to ~3% general inflation)
  • Consumer spending (actions over words, we’re in a perma-vibecession + K-shaped economy)

The indicator of the year for 2025 was tariffs.

A.k.a. The economic soap opera of 2025.

Runners up:

  • Consumer sentiment (see “vibecession”)
  • CAPE ratio (cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio): stocks are the most expensive they’ve ever been (compared to actual earnings) since just before the dotcom crash

The economy is standing in a hallway filled with closed doors. The movement of these indicators will determine which door it opens and walks through.

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Meta clearly wants to own the new hardware platform: glasses.

Really, really badly.

But what if Snap’s Spectacles make more sense?

Whereas Snap, which has really begun leaning into its identity as a messaging platform more than a social network, is really going to, I think put communication and sharing of communication between users at the heart of Spectacles and that is going to, I think, give it a purchase in a way that the Meta’s Ray-Bans have not.

Meta’s apps are much more about consumption these days, how do glasses integrate with that paradigm?

via EMARKETER

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Consumer confidence—after being revised up for November (post-shutdown bump)—dipped (again) in December (aka this month).

Despite it being the most wonderful time of the year, people aren’t feeling good about the Present Situation, with the labor market playing the role of Ghost of Christmas Future.

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Welcome to dead week planning week!

Reddit and mobile apps (Applovin') are hot like Hansel with advertisers right now. There’s probably plenty of runway left for ad growth (unlike Meta), but the question remains:

Should you zig or should you zag?

via EMARKETER

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Your logo is not your brand.

Making the rounds on work chat today, from Seth Godin’s archive:

Spend 10,000 times as much time and money on your brand as you spend on your logo.

Your logo is a referent, a symbol, a reminder of your brand.

But your brand is a story, a set of emotions and expectations and a stand-in for how we think and feel about what you do.

Building a brand is expensive today and cheap tomorrow.