Pretend for a moment you are the best-selling country artist of all time. Then pretend you hit a midlife crisis. Instead of doing cocaine, getting a mistress twenty years your junior, or a six-figure sports car, you decide you want to star in a movie where you play a fictional rock star. So you create a detailed backstory that reads like fan fiction—the rockstar is from Australia, his parents are world-class swimmers, his house burns down, his bandmate and best friend dies in an airplane crash, his manager steals his money, he develops a debilitating sex addiction and is disfigured in a tragic car accident. 

While this would be just another day for Johnny Depp, it’s truly bizarre for anyone else. But what if I told you this is exactly what Garth Brooks did at the peak of his fame and fortune this week in 1999? Brooks created an alter ego, a rock star named Chris Gaines. And Gaines (Brooks) lost 40 pounds, dressed in black, threw on some leather pants, grew a soul patch, and became something of a cross between Derek Zoolander and Prince with a little bit of My Chemical Romance mixed in. Gaines (Brooks) then released “Lost in You,” a tepid love song which somehow managed to make it all the way to #5 on the charts—not bad for a cowboy who tore through Spirit Halloween and bought the Emo Kid costume.

There was an album, too—a greatest hits album in fact. And a VH1 Behind the Music special featuring Billy Joel. The movie was supposed to follow (entitled The Lamb), but because the public’s reaction was so bizarre (was it a superstar crossing over or a country music artist rejecting his past?), the movie never came and Chris Gaines quickly faded in obscurity.

This month’s economic indicators are staging their own Chris Gaines moment—a confusing identity crisis and black eyeliner to cover the underlying angst. First, the reasonably good news.  Gross Sales rebounded to $846.8 million (up 0.27% year-over-year). After last month's dramatic crash, this uptick is a good deal. Employment also held steady with non-farm jobs reaching 78,800 (up 1.72%), though average weekly wages barely budged to $1,009. And airport passengers are up to 102,243 (up 10.34%).

But good data doesn’t always square with what we know to be reality. For example, hotel occupancy is down, and although active listings are also up, the days-on-market increased to 39 days. You would expect this to lower prices slightly, but the price of housing hasn’t budged at all.  Further, even though vacancy rates are slightly down overall and building permits and valuation climbed, we know downtown vacancies are much higher than the overall totals (by as much as 15%) and building valuations are off last year’s pace. 

This means President Trump's tariff saga continues to lurk in the background like the ghost of a Chris Gaines show. Meanwhile, inflation ticked up to 3.0% regionally. Firing the Bureau of Labor Statics chief statistics officer or shooting India’s goods with a double-barrel shotgun won’t make inflation go away any more than a soul patch made Garth Brooks a rockstar.

Each month we ask ourselves: what does it all mean? If we knew that, we’d certainly tell you. Right now, it’s probably best if we continue to sit back and try and read the signs as quick as we can. For one thing isn’t in doubt—the animal spirits that move markets usually puts the Black Hills in a good position to react to whatever comes.

Stay safe and God-speed,

Tom