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

#1 CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IS FALLING: The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 4.5 points in June to 98.7 and now stands at its lowest level since February 2021.

#2 EDUCATION SPENDING: The US spends $762B annually on K-12 education according to the US Department of Education. This would represent the GDP of the 19th largest economy in the world.  

#3 SMARTPHONE USAGE: Nearly 6 in 10 American adults who use smartphones say that they use theirs too much according to a new Gallup poll. This is up nearly 20 percentage points since 2015 and has increased markedly among all age groups.

#4 OIL RESERVES: The US released 6.9 million barrels of crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve last week according to the Department of Energy. This has pushed stockpiles in the SPR below the 500 million barrels mark for the first time since 1986.

#5 CEO QUOTE: “I'm a firm believer that $100, $110, $120 oil is not going to cause demand destruction. I know we're in a period where the President is complaining about $5 gasoline, but I really don't think we're going to see too much demand destruction between $100 and $120. People forget between 2010 and 2014, we had $100 to $110 oil. We saw very little demand destruction at that point in time.” Scott Sheffield – Pioneer Natural Resources

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