As mortgage rates hit a 22-year high and existing homeowners continue to stay in their homes, new single family home sales hit a 17-month high in July, according to HUD and U.S. Census Bureau data. Last month’s data recorded a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 714,000 new single-family home sales, up 4.4% from the revised … Read More
Eyes will be on inflation data coming out this week. The news on that front has been trending positive and suggests the Fed is nearing the end of the rate hiking cycle. As we’ve been discussing here, the second quarter was strong and the third quarter appears to be holding up on the consumer front as well, as the jobs market … Read More
As the market was expecting, the Fed raised interest rates another quarter point Wednesday afternoon, bringing the federal-funds rate to a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, a 22 year high. There will be eight weeks until the next Fed meeting. Chairman Jay Powell said there is “uncertainty in the next meeting let alone next year.” Powell also said he believed they “have a shot” at a soft … Read More
Fed Chairman Jay Powell is on the Hill delivering the Fed’s semiannual report on monetary policy to the Senate and House. He told the House Committee the Fed is likely to raise interest rates in the coming months but at a slower pace than they have moved over the past year, weighing the risk that the combination of their 10 … Read More
There continues to be a conundrum in US markets: Q1 was very strong for consumer spending, above pre-pandemic levels, substantially. There has been decent, though slowing, payroll data — the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that total non-farm payroll employment rose by 236,000 in March. It was the smallest increase in more than two years, but it … Read More
