Five interesting things that Hodges Capital research analysts discovered this week...

#1 CONSUMER CONFIDENCE: The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 10 points last week, marking the largest decline since August 2021. Consumers were more pessimistic about future labor market conditions, less positive about future business conditions, and less positive about future income.

#2 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “…. there is no EU company with a market capitalization over €100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six U.S. companies with a valuation above €1 trillion have been created in the period.” Mario Draghi, former European Central Bank President and Prime Minister of Italy.

#3 COFFEE CONSUMPTION: The National Coffee Association’s consumer trends report indicated that 36% of consumers surveyed said they drank coffee the past day away from home. This is the highest percentage response since early 2020.

#4 DATA CENTER GROWTH: According to Piper Sandler, the U.S. currently has around 5,380 data centers up from 2,700 in January 2021  50% of the U.S. data center load is concentrated in 4 states: Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois.

#5 FREIGHT: 36 U.S. ports (representing 41% of port import volumes according to Goldman Sachs) could face disruption if an agreement is not met with workers before the end of this month.

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