As we wrap up another week, we found plenty of numbers worth noting. As usual, whenever we stumble on stats that make us do a double-take, we try to share them here. This edition has something for everyone: Gen-Alpha kids who’d rather livestream than pitch in the majors, white-collar job postings that aren’t what they used to be, a lingering love affair with real estate, and a record surge in data-center spending that says the digital build-out is far from finished. Let’s dive in.
What Happened to Sports? Of 910 Generation Alpha Americans surveyed between the ages of 12 and 15, the top two career aspirations were YouTuber (32%) and TikTok creator (21%). Along with 15% of those surveyed who aspire to be professional online streamers, over two-thirds of Gen Alpha Americans aspire to be some form of online influencer for their career. (Source: Fortune)
(Don’t) Learn to Code. New listings for white-collar jobs declined 12.7% from Q1 2024 to Q1 2025. Over the last two years, listings for Software Developer and Business Analyst roles saw the largest decline and fell twice as fast as the overall decline in white-collar roles. (Source: Revelio Labs)
Buy Dirt. While the stock market has outperformed real estate handily in the US over the last half-century, a recent Gallup survey found that 37% of Americans think real estate is the best long-term investment compared to just 16% for stocks. Real estate has ranked as the top investment choice for Americans every year since 2014. (Source: Gallup)
Lower Odds of an Audit? In response to the President’s executive order to reduce the size of the Federal workforce, the IRS will cut its staff by 11% (11,433). The IRS cuts will come disproportionately from revenue agents who conduct audits. The size of that unit will fall by 31%, or 3,623 agents. (Source: US Treasury)
Buying the Dip. The S&P 500 was down 13.8% month-to-date at its intraday low on April 8th, but it rallied 15.2% through month-end to finish April down just 0.76%. April was the closest the index has ever come to fully erasing an intra-month drop of more than 10% going back to 1928. (Source: Bespoke)
Net Selling. Similar to the jump in bearishness seen across investor sentiment surveys in recent months, Schwab’s Trading Activity Index – which tracks the amount of shares bought and sold by clients – saw its biggest one-month drop (net selling) since March 2020 in April, leaving the index at its lowest level in two years. (Source: Schwab.com)
Rally Time. After falling an average of 14% in four trading days from 4/2 to 4/8, stocks in the Russell 1,000 gained an average of 19.1% since (through 5/14). Nearly a third of the stocks in the index are up more than 25%, including an incredible 46 that are up more than 50%. (Source: Bespoke)
Humanoids are Coming. Morgan Stanley estimates $4.7 trillion in global revenues from humanoid robots by 2050 with roughly 1 billion units sold by then. Goldman Sachs projects that 1.4 million humanoid units will be shipped annually by 2035, and Citi sees a $7 trillion market for humanoids in the next 25 years. (Source: CNBC, Yahoo! Finance)
Record IT Investment. Nonresidential fixed investment in IT equipment (driven mostly by data-center spending) accounted for nearly one full percentage point of US GDP growth in Q1, which eclipsed the prior record high seen in Q1 2000 at the height of the Dot Com boom. (Source: BEA)
CPI Cools. While surveys have shown Americans are worried about an inflation spike this year, monthly CPI came in weaker than expected for the third month in a row in April, and the year/year increase of 2.3% was the lowest since February 2021. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Markets / Economy
- Markets were broadly higher, driven by early week news of delayed tariffs for the EU. The S&P finished up 1.9%, the Nasdaq was up 2.0%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 was up 1.3%.
- The annual PCE inflation eased for a second consecutive month, reaching 2.1% in April 2025, the lowest level in seven months, down from 2.3% in March and below forecasts of 2.2%.
- The Core PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s chosen gauge of underlying inflation in the US economy, increased 0.1% from the previous month in Apri.
- Initial jobless claims 14K from the previous week to 240K for the period ending May 24th, the highest in one month, and above market expectations of 230K. Additionally, outstanding claims rose by 26K to 1.919M, well above market expectations that they would ease to 1.890M, the highest level since November 2021.
Stocks
- U.S. equities were in positive territory. Real Estate and Financials were the top performers, while Energy and Materials lagged. Growth stocks outperformed value stocks, and large-cap stocks outperformed small-cap stocks.
- International equities closed higher for the week. Developed markets fared better than emerging markets.
Bonds
- The 10-year Treasury bond yield decreased nine basis points to 4.42% during the week.
- Global bond markets were in positive territory this week.
- Corporate bonds led for the week, followed by high-yield bonds and government bonds.
