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1. Mag 7 Revenues and EPS at Record Highs…Not Dead Yet

^{Yardeni Quick Takes}

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2. S&P Ex-NVDA Trails Japan and Europe Since 2022 

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3. 50% of World in Poverty to 10% Since 1950

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4. China Exports to Vietnam then Vietnam Exports to U.S.

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5. U.S. Automakers are Huge Importers

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6. Real Estate Friday

Office Delinquencies Turn Back Up-By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.  Delinquencies of office mortgages that were securitized into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) have been in the red-hot zone since mid-2023 and in December 2024 hit 11.0%, surpassing even the debt-meltdown during the Financial Crisis. Then, during the first three months of 2025, the delinquency rate backed off some, but in April re-spiked by 52 basis points to 10.3%, according to data by Trepp today, which tracks and analyzes CMBS.

The 52-basis-point increase of the delinquency rate represented a U-Turn from the feeble signs of hope earlier this year and put the delinquency rate right back into the peak of the Financial Crisis meltdown.

A flight to quality has divided the office market into two: Amid much reduced demand for office space, vacancies in the latest and greatest buildings allow companies to move from older office towers into new fancy offices, while downsizing space at the same time . But landlords of older properties have trouble finding new tenants to replace them, and their vacancy rates have soared. It’s those older office towers that are on the problem list, not the latest and greatest towers.

Monthly Payment for Mortgage Doubled in Last 5 Years.

The biggest constraint continues to be affordability, with the median housing payment needed to afford the median priced home nearly doubling over the past five years.

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7. Money Pours into American Soccer

Capital pours into US soccer

More money is pouring into US soccer as the sport’s popularity grows in the country. Sponsorship revenue for Major League Soccer is up more than 10% so far this year compared to 2024, CNBC reported, alongside a surge in ticket and merch sales; much of that is owed to Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi joining Inter Miami in 2023. Newfound corporate support — coupled with next year’s men’s World Cup in North America — bodes well for soccer’s future in the US, an expert wrote in Sports Business Journal: American clubs still pale financially in comparison to the European giants, but “a perfect storm exists for one of the world’s oldest sports to reach a new zenith of popularity.”

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8. India vs. Pakistan Military Size

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9. My High School featured in WSJ for National Model---High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers

Companies with shortages of skilled workers look to shop class to recruit future hires; ‘like I’m an athlete getting all this attention from all these pro teams’

By Te-Ping Chen

Key Points

• Employers are increasingly recruiting high-schoolers in skilled trades due to worker shortages as baby boomers retire.

• High schools are revitalizing shop classes and teaming up with businesses that offer students opportunities for part-time work and academic credit.

• Welding students at Philadelphia’s Father Judge are getting job offers paying $50,000 and above, with no college debt.

PHILADELPHIA—Elijah Rios won’t graduate from high school until next year, but he already has a job offer—one that pays $68,000 a year.

Rios, 17 years old, is a junior taking welding classes at Father Judge, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works closely with companies looking for workers in the skilled trades. Employers are dealing with a shortage of such workers as baby boomers retire. They have increasingly begun courting high-school students like Rios—a hiring strategy they say is likely to become even more crucial in the coming years.

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A look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play.

Employers ranging from the local transit system to submarine manufacturers make regular visits to Father Judge’s welding classrooms every year, bringing branded swag and pitching students on their workplaces. When Rios graduates next year, he plans to work as a fabricator at a local equipment maker for nuclear, recycling and other sectors, a job that pays $24 an hour, plus regular overtime and paid vacations.

“Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming—like, this company wants you, that company wants you,” says Rios, who grew up in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington around drug addicts and homelessness, and says he was determined to build a better life for himself. “It honestly feels like I’m an athlete getting all this attention from all these pro teams.”

High-school junior Elijah Rios, left, already has a $68,000 job offer for when he graduates. At right, the welding classroom at Father Judge High School.

Increased efforts to recruit high-schoolers into professions such as plumbing, electrical work and welding have helped spur a revitalization of shop classes in many districts. More businesses are teaming up with high schools to enable students to work part-time, earning money as well as academic credit. More employers are showing up at high school career days and turning to creative recruiting strategies, as well.

Employers say that as the skilled trades become more tech-infused, they anticipate doing even more recruitment at an early age, because they need workers who are comfortable programming and running computer diagnostics. “I’m not looking to hire the guy I used to have 20 years ago,” says Bob Walker, founder of Global Affinity, the Bristol, Pa.-based manufacturer who offered Rios a job. The equipment he uses is highly advanced, including a $1.7 million steel laser cutter, and he says he needs tech-savvy workers to operate it.

Angie Simon, until recently chief executive of a mechanical contractor in California, in 2021 started the “Heavy Metal Summer Experience,” a nonprofit summer program that exposes high-school students to careers in the trades, including welding, plumbing and piping. She is now executive director of the program, which is free to participants who apply. It will enroll 900 students this summer in 51 locations across the country, mostly hosted by local contractors who often hire former campers after they graduate.

“You got to stop thinking someone else is going to solve your problem,” says Simon, whose former company at times struggled to fill certain roles. “Why don’t you do something about it?”

Jenny Cantrill, at table right, participated in the Heavy Metal Summer Experience in Boston.

Jenny Cantrill, 18, is working at Cannistraro, a plumbing and HVAC mechanical contractor that hosted her summer camp in Boston. She credits the camp for piquing her interest in plumbing, and accepted Cannistraro’s job offer without looking elsewhere. “I already had that connection,” she says.

A decade ago, administrators often snubbed employers in the skilled trades who tried to get a table at a high school career fair, says Aaron Hilger, CEO of the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association. But with more high schools trying to give students alternatives to college, he says, that attitude has changed.

Constellation Energy, an operator of U.S. nuclear power plants based in Baltimore, offers maintenance technician and equipment-operator roles that are open to high-school graduates without four-year college degrees, and pay as much as six figures. “These are family-sustaining careers,” says Ray Stringer, a vice president overseeing workforce development at the company. Last year, Constellation launched a work-based learning program outside Chicago that invites high-school students to shadow workers at the company’s nuclear facilities while also earning community-college credit.

High-school juniors work on sought-after welding skills at Father Judge.

The company sponsors SkillsUSA, a national organization that annually convenes a week-long conference where students learning the trades can show off their skills at a venue the size of 31 football fields. The organization, founded in 1965, has seen an influx of interest from employers in the past few years, as well as students. Hundreds of companies now attend SkillsUSA each year to get their name in front of prospective hires, says the group’s executive director, Chelle Travis.

The smartest employers get a foot into high schools early on by offering internships, says Roxanne Amiot, an automotive instructor at Bullard-Havens Technical School in Bridgeport, Conn. “I tell them, don’t call me for students when they graduate, grab them now when they’re 16 or 17, or I have nobody to work for you.”

An open house at the high school last fall attracted a record 1,000 people, Amiot says, and all her classes have wait lists.

Students at Father Judge get instruction on auto technology.

Dan Schnaufer, service and body shop director at the nearby D’Addario Automotive Group, brings on several high-school students every year to work part-time in his shop, including from Bullard-Havens. They receive academic credit for their work, and he has the benefit of seeing their skills and temperament in action and being first in line to hire them once they graduate.

Is a focus on the skilled trades in high school a positive for the future workforce? Join the conversation below.

“The idea of growing your own talent has gotten more critical in recent years, when you have fewer and fewer people going into this industry,” he says. At his shop, fresh high-school graduates can make around $50,000 a year, he says, and six figures within five years, without college debt.

For years, the pendulum swung too far in the direction of a college-for-all mindset, and it’s important to make sure students are made aware of all their options, says Steve Klein, a researcher who focuses on vocational education at the nonprofit Education Northwest. At the same time, as interest in vocational education rises, he worries that sentiment runs the risk of swinging too much in the other direction.

“There’s no one answer that works for all people,” he says, adding that too much of a focus on the skilled trades in high school means students risk losing exposure to broader career interests, too.

Aiden Holland, a senior at Father Judge, has been recruited for a welding position that pays $75,000 a year.

At Philadelphia’s Father Judge, all 24 graduating seniors in the welding program have job offers, each paying $50,000 and above, says welding instructor Joe Williams. More employers, he says, reach out to him every semester.

Aiden Holland, a senior at the high school, was recruited earlier this spring to become a nuclear submarine welder at a defense contractor in New Jersey, a position paying $75,000 a year. The 18-year-old says he’s grateful to have landed a job like that, with no college debt, and that his college-bound peers are often astonished to learn how much he can make with no degree.

“It feels good knowing we’re very, very much in demand,” he says.

Write to Te-Ping Chen at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications

Cannistraro, a plumbing and HVAC mechanical contractor, hosted a summer camp in Boston. An earlier version of the article stated the summer camp was in Seaport, Mass. (Corrected on May 7)

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10. Opinion: 7 life lessons from Warren Buffett that have nothing to do with picking stocks

From MarketWatch

We all have the ability to emulate the Oracle of Omaha in the ways that really matter By Brett Arends

I’ve been following Buffett and writing about him for a quarter-century, which is long by some measures and no time at all by others. (He has been managing money for nearly three times that long.) Now that he has announced, at age 94, that he is at last retiring as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, there are all the usual encomia about his investment genius and his stock-picking skills. And those are extraordinary, no question: It is very unlikely we would see his like again, even if we lived 10 lifetimes.

But it’s all the other stuff that has really struck me over the years — the smart decisions about life and money he’s made that don’t get so much attention. And that’s a pity, because those who try to replicate Buffett’s investment success probably won’t succeed. But everyone can learn from the other stuff.

1. He never moved to New York. Buffett never left Omaha, Neb., where the cost of living is a fraction of New York City and the quality of life, for him and probably for most people, is going to be much higher. (Bankrate reckons the cost of living in Omaha is 60% below that in Manhattan — meaning someone in Omaha need only earn $40,000 a year to have the same standard of living of someone in New York with an income of $100,000.)

Compare and contrast with all those people paying through the nose to live in a nice home in an expensive locale, or living in a shoebox, or spending 90 minutes commuting each way. Employers are now pushing everyone back to the office. Fair enough. But how about if more employers moved their offices somewhere more livable and affordable? It’s not the office that workers hate so much as the commute.

2. He didn’t waste money on stuff. Not for him the yachts, expensive cars, luxury properties or other toys of the rich and bored. Buffett seemed to understand early and instinctively what it has taken psychologists decades to conclude: That beyond a certain level, more spending will add little or nothing to your happiness. (When giving away his money, he said that spending beyond about 1% of his net worth on himself and his family would add nothing to their well-being or happiness.)

Psychologists refer to “the hedonic treadmill.” This is the futility — hence “treadmill” — of trying to achieve happiness by constantly buying more and bigger and better stuff.

The problem is that the human brain adapts to whatever we have. We get used to it. This is why lottery winners typically end up no happier years later than anyone else, and why if you visit a place where really rich people hang out — Palm Beach, Fla., or a five-star luxury hotel — and look around, you probably won’t see them all grinning madly about the fact that they are rich and marveling at all the things they can afford. But while “stuff” is costly to the rich, it’s lethal to the rest of us: That’s money we will need. The only way to beat the treadmill is to get off it.

3. He has a job he loves. From a financial standpoint, Buffett hasn’t had to work since he was in his 40s, but he kept going for another half-century — and loved it. “I’ve always worked in a job I love,” he once said. “I loved it just as much when it was a big deal if I made a thousand bucks, and I urge you to work in jobs you love.” Another time he described his job more as “play” than “work.”

This is priceless advice. Most of us will spend most of our waking hours, for the bulk of our lives, either working, traveling to or from work, getting ready for work or recovering from it. What is the dollar value of that time? It was a wise person who first observed that if you do a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

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4. He has given, and is continuing to give, most of his money away. It’s almost impossible to imagine all the good that will be achieved with the hundreds of billions of dollars that Buffett has accumulated during his lifetime and that he is giving away to good causes. “Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks (Berkshire Hathaway stock certificates) on ourselves,” he writes, “neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others.”

5. He didn’t care what the crowd thought. After more than a quarter of a century of writing about markets and finance, I’ve come to think my main expertise — possibly my only expertise — is on the subject of “popular delusions and the madness of crowds.” From ancient Greece to the COVID-19 crisis, it’s a subject that has fascinated me. And learning about it has made me especially fond of Buffett.

It wasn’t only during the dot-com bubble that he stood against the crowd’s insanity. He closed down his first partnership in the 1960s rather than join in the bubble of the “go-go years.” He invested, and publicly urged others to invest, during the epic bear market of the 1970s. He did it again during the 2008 crash. He made his money by courageously standing up against mass insanity and sticking to his principles. Bravo.

6. He’s humble. I’ve always said I don’t trust anyone until I have heard them say “I don’t know” and “I was wrong.” Buffett’s willingness to do both has been among his greatest and most profitable attributes. He has frequently emphasized that he invests only within his “circle of competence,” meaning he only invests in what he knows. And he admits there is a lot he doesn’t know.

“During the 2019-23 period, I have used the words “mistake” or “error” 16 times in my letters to you,” he wrote to stockholders in the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway annual report. “Many other huge companies have never used either word over that span.” For them, he added, “it has generally been happy talk and pictures.”

7. He’s acted like a grown-up. Can you imagine Warren Buffett standing around on a stage (in a graphic T-shirt) waving a chainsaw in the air and laughing about the middle-class jobs he was going to eliminate? Can you imagine him bragging about using bankruptcy laws to stiff his creditors? Can you imagine him running a bank so recklessly that it would end up crashing the global economy, but cashing out of his own stock before the stuff hit the fan, and then walking away with a shrug? I can’t. But I’ve seen billionaires and Wall Street tycoons do exactly those things in the recent past.

If you want to see how a billionaire should behave — in my view, anyway — watch Buffett’s remarkable statement to Congress during the Salomon Brothers hearings in 1991. There are billionaires, and then there are billionaires. We have too many of one kind, and too few of the other.

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