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- A Week in Charts
A Week in Charts
Charts of interest with brief commentary...Liabilities, Real Estate, Investing
Todd Ballenger
January 24, 2026
"Do you appreciate your non-toothache?"
LIABILITIES
What’s Happening?
For those not in the mortgage business, rates are getting lower.
We're getting to some major tipping points where a larger percentage of the customers you support are going to move in the money.If you look at blended rate across all debt, there's a bigger opportunity.
We do have some concerns right now in the US with forward bond yields.
We've been benefiting from a weak dollar and a downwardly moving market index.
I'm keeping a close eye on Japan, this could cause some real issues for the U.S. if money leaves our treasuries.That would force rates to potentially auction higher.
We also need to keep watching inflation rates as inflation is turning up. Also puts pressure on rates.
That said, do not quit your day job as a mortgage originator to day trade.
The wind at our back is a continuously growing household balance sheet.We manage assets because real estate is a massive part of consumer wealth, and we manage liabilities because most debts are concentrated in the mortgage.
Hat Tip - Chris Freck
REAL ESTATE
What’s Happening?
Harder and harder for young people to enter the housing market.
But there will be a huge transfer of real estate-related wealth in the next 10 years.
Real estate has been a laggard in terms of market returns for the last 10 years.
Love this resource for housing data:
ASSETS
What’s Happening?
Big shift to energy has a lot of uncertainty in the Middle East and a need for raw materials to fuel the AI growth.
The U.S. is the market.However, returns may start to look better elsewhere.
A great example of other countries outperforming the U.S.
One piece of good news is the bull market is expanding to non-MAG 7 stocks.
Savings is trending down while assets are going up.People are allowing their equity portfolios to do the heavy lifting.That's great until there's a downturn.
Sentiment has been really negative, and that's usually a great sign for the stock market.
And the economy is still very strong.
But anytime the world rushes to buy gold, you can't help but wonder what's going on underneath the surface that we can't see.
ON BEING HUMAN
What’s Worth Sharing?
Think I'll move to New Hampshire.
I'm getting more sleep, but man, I'm not getting this much sleep.
Students aren't learning how to take tests well anymore.
DOPAMEMES
And Other Happy Moments…
TLDR:
Cool article from Whitney on the purpose of life. She shares, and I share that in my life, that we all have to search for what's really true to us, to become more aware of ourselves and the world around us. They think most people go through life on autopilot, not really thinking clearly because they're too busy protecting their feelings and telling themselves stories that make them feel safe. Right now, the author says, humans have created many big problems—and we're not thinking clearly enough to solve them. The fix? Each person needs to face their fears, stop pretending to be something they're not, and start seeing things as they really are. When you do that, life gets easier, and you make better choices. If enough people did this inner work, we might actually be able to handle the huge challenges facing everyone on Earth.
https://x.com/TotemMacro/article/2013339862162718764
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AI
and The Future of Work…
Having worked in the AI sandbox this is both great advice (found all this to be true) plus I learned new stuff here as well:
