Podcast: Lessons from Dad
We’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time learning about life and business from great dads … Both our own and otherwise.
We’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time learning about life and business from great dads … Both our own and otherwise.
A strange narrative of “defeated inflation” is circulating in the mainstream in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s recent 75bps interest rate hike, but we’ve seen this kind of false optimism from the Fed and the media before.
U.S. mortgage rates jumped more than half a percentage point this week, an increase not seen in decades and one sure to price even more Americans out of the housing market.
Three weeks ago, we showed readers what happens when the infamous “Bullwhip effect” reversal takes place by presenting the unprecedented surge in the “Inventory to Sales” ratio for a broad range of US retailers covering the furniture, home furnishings and appliances, building materials and garden equipment, and a category known as “other general merchandise,” which includes Walmart and Target. Since then, this ratio has only gotten even more extended, and as shown below it is now at the highest level since the bursting of the dot com bubble!
A little over a month ago, when mortgage rates were still “only” 5% we shared several devastating anecdotes from real estate agents and industry execs who validated our worst fears: US housing was imploding… fast, with subsequent observations only confirming this dire conclusion about the state of the most popular asset class among the US middle class.
Privately‐owned housing starts in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,549,000. This is 14.4 percent below the revised April estimate of 1,810,000 and is 3.5 percent below the May 2021 rate of 1,605,000. Single‐family housing starts in May were at a rate of 1,051,000; this is 9.2 percent below the revised April figure of 1,157,000. The May rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 469,000.
It’s too soon to call an end to America’s worst bond-market collapse in at least half a century. Treasuries resumed losses on Thursday with 30-year yields climbing to the highest in nearly eight years, spurring steeper yield curves — a sign of investors bracing for further inflation flare-ups.
Amid surging layoffs in the real estate market, slumping homebuilder sentiment, soaring rates and plunging mortgage applications, it is no surprise that analysts expected a drop in Housing Starts and Permits in May (-1.8% MoM and -2.5% MoM respectively). Those numbers were destroyed as Housing Starts crashed 14.4% MoM and Permits plunged 7.0% MoM…
The average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan climbed to its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis and purchase applications were down more than 15% from last year, Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) data showed on Wednesday.
Global bonds are on the cusp of entering a bear market after the fastest US inflation in four decades fueled bets the Federal Reserve will make its biggest interest-rate hike since 1994 this week.