ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
November 1, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, October Update: 10 of the 20 Metros Down from their Peaks Last Year, 6 Metros Set New Highs
We like the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index because it’s based on the “sales-pairs method” comparing the sales price of the same house over time, thereby eliminating the issues associated with median price indices (see “Methodology” toward the end of the article). And we like it because it shows the 20 metros it covers […]
October 28, 2023 | Powell’s Gonna Have a Cow When He Sees the PCE Inflation in “Core Services,” Housing, and Non-Housing Core Services
The spike in inflation in “core services” (all services except energy services) was the big nasty surprise – inflation is infamous for dishing up nasty surprises – in today’s release of the PCE price index for September. “Core services” is the index that Fed chair Jerome Powell has been hammering on, especially “core services without […]
October 18, 2023 | 30-Year Treasury Yield Spikes past 5%, 30-year mortgage rates hit 8%, Mortgage Applications Plunge
Today it’s the 30-year Treasury yield that pierced the 5% line. It currently trades at 5.02%, the highest since August 2007. The first of the long-term yields to spike through the 5% line was the unloved 20-year Treasury yield on October 3; it currently trades at 5.25%. These long-term yields above 5% are an indication […]
October 14, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: Prices Drop Further as Sales Slow and New Listings Jump Further
The Canada Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses in fell for the third month in a row, in September by 1.3% from August, after having dropped by 1.1% and by 0.5% in the prior two months, to $815,300 (all prices in Canadian dollars). The three months in a row of declines came after […]
September 27, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, September Update: Spring Bounce Fades. 20-City Index -0.6% from Peak in 2022, Flat Year-over-Year
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released today, for the 20 metros it covers ticked up 0.6% in July from June, the smallest month-to-month increase since February, continuing the trend of ever-smaller month-to-month increases following the powerful bounce in the spring, when three months in a row, the month-to-month jumps were 1.5% or higher. Compared […]
September 19, 2023 | Worst “Rent” Inflation since 1983 & Red-Hot Homeownership CPI Fuel Canada’s CPI Surge. Bank of Canada in a Pickle of its Own Making
In a nasty big surprise of the type that inflation, once it’s running loose, likes to dish out, the Consumer Price Index in Canada re-accelerated in August for the second month in a row, to 4.0% year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada today, up from 3.3% in July, and 2.8% in June (red line in the […]
September 15, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: Price Drops Spread amid Slowing Sales, Rising Supply, Bank of Canada Tightening
The Canada Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses fell by 1.1% in August from July, after having already fallen by 0.5% in July, to $825,700 (all prices in Canadian dollars), ending a rambunctious spring selling season that had been further fueled by Bank of Canada rate-cut hopes, which then turned into two additional […]
September 10, 2023 | Mortgage-Rate Buydowns by Homebuilders Are Now All the Rage to Prop Up Sales, Lowering Effective House Prices in a Big Way, but Don’t Get Picked Up by House Price Data
Homebuilders don’t have the luxury of outwaiting the market, or waiting for the Fed to slash rates, or whatever, they must build and sell homes, that’s their business, no matter what the conditions in the market. And the market is struggling with 7%-plus 30-year fixed mortgage rates and sky-high prices, after a ridiculous free-money spike […]
August 29, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, August Update: 4th YoY Price Drop Overall, 10 of 20 Cities with YoY Drops. Month-to-Month, Selling Season Begins to Fade
Today’s S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index for “June” is a three-month moving average of home prices whose sales were entered into public records in April, May, and June, and it still shows the seasonal effects of spring selling season, when prices typically rise on a month-to-month basis, but the effects began to fade, and the index […]
August 23, 2023 | Home Sales Plunge Further as Demand Vanished at these Prices. Even Cash Buyers Pull Back. Supply Keeps Rising
Sales of previously owned homes (houses, condos, and co-ops) fell further, by 2.2% in July from June, to a deep-dismal seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 4.07 million, the lowest since January, which had matched the March 2020 lockdown low, which had been the lowest since the Housing Bust in 2010, even as the median […]
August 15, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: After a Rocking & Rolling BoC-Pause Season, the First Price Drops Reappear
The spring selling season, or rather the Bank of Canada “Pause” season, which had been a rocking and rolling hoot, is over, and the first price declines are here. The Canada Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses fell by 0.5% in July from June, and by 0.9% year-over-year, to $834,500 (all prices in […]
August 12, 2023 | Consumer Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, Delinquencies, and Collections: Checking on the Hangover of our Drunken Sailors
Our Drunken Sailors have been out there spending money, and some of it comes from their surging income that has been outrunning inflation finally this year, and they’re spending money from their investment gains and from surging interest income from CDs, money market funds, Treasury bills, and savings accounts. And some are spending money they’ve […]
July 26, 2023 | Fed Hikes by 25 Basis Points, to 5.5% Top of Range, Highest since 2001, More Rate Hikes on the Table. QT Continues
The Fed’s FOMC raised its five policy rates by 25 basis points today, which pushed the upper limit of its policy rates to 5.5%, the highest since January 2001. The Fed had broadly telegraphed this move after the “very hawkish skip” meeting in June, when it projected two more rate hikes this year. The Fed […]
July 20, 2023 | Housing Market Faces Reckoning: Price of Used Houses now the Same as Price of New Houses
Sales of previously owned single-family houses fell by 3.4% in June from May, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 3.72 million houses, the lowest since January, according to the National Association of Realtors today. This is deep-dismal sales territory, even as supply rose to 3.1 months, and inventories to 960,000 houses, both the […]
July 14, 2023 | Honey, the Dollar’s Collapsing Again: USD against Yen, Euro, Peso, Other Currencies amid Inflation, Rate Hikes, and QT (or Lack Thereof)
The dollar-collapse and dollar-crash folks are out in force. “The dollar crashed to its lowest in more than a year on Wednesday after data showed the rise in U.S. consumer prices moderated in June, suggesting the Federal Reserve may have to raise interest rates only one more time this year,” Reuters said, which put one […]
July 7, 2023 | Fed’s Balance Sheet Drops $667 Billion fr. Peak to $8.3 Trillion, Below Aug 2021, as QT Continues, Bank Panic Support Unwinds
The Fed’s total assets dropped by $87 billion in June, and by $667 billion since the historic peak in April 2022, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet today. In the 15 weeks since the height of the bank panic in March, the Fed has shed $435 billion in assets, the fastest-ever 15-week drop, as […]
June 27, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, June Update: 2nd Overall YoY Price Drop since 2012. Biggest in Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Dallas…
It’s still spring selling season, when sales volume and prices nearly always rise on a month-to-month basis, and they did this spring too, but not enough, and compared to a year ago, the 20 cities in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released today, fell by 1.7%, the biggest year-over-year decline since 2012, following […]
June 23, 2023 | Core CPI in Japan Worst since 1981. Food Inflation Worst since 1976. But Energy Prices Plunge
The Bank of Japan has been the total outlier in its reaction to the surge of inflation: It’s still practicing QE under the guise of yield curve control, which keeps the 10-year yield below 0.5%; and it’s still pushing its short them yields below 0%. It’s clearly doing this on purpose, because these folks aren’t […]
June 14, 2023 | Powell on the New Hawkishness in the Dot Plot and on Inflation: “We See that it Tells Us that We Need to Do More”
Renewed hawkish sentiments are building up at the Fed for the second half this year. That’s what we saw today. While the Fed kept rates steady today “to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the median projection in the FOMC’s infamous “dot plot” today calls for two more rate hikes this year, […]
June 7, 2023 | The Bank of Canada Un-Pauses, Hikes 25 Basis Points, Second Central Bank to Un-Pause on Resurging Inflation Fears
The Bank of Canada un-paused today, after having “paused” following the January hike. The pause had been widely ballyhooed as the end of the rate hikes and a pivot toward rate cuts. Those hopes have now been bitterly disappointed. Everyone is figuring out that this inflation isn’t just fading away on its own. Today it […]
May 31, 2023 | That was Fast: Mortgage Rates Re-Spike to 7% Range as it Sinks in that the Fed Won’t Cut Rates “Anytime Soon,” Mortgage Applications Plunge to 1995 Levels. Even Investors Pull Out
The 7% mortgages are back. The average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming balances jumped to 6.91%, the highest since November, according to the weekly measure by the Mortgage Bankers Association today. The daily measure by Mortgage News Daily already went over 7% a few days last week and earlier this week. “Inflation […]
May 26, 2023 | Fed’s Favored Core PCE Price Index Re-Accelerates, Driven by Services, Motor Vehicles: Inflation Stuck on High, Shifts from Item to Item
The inflation index favored by the Fed, the core PCE price index – which, by excluding the food and energy products, is a measure of underlying inflation – re-accelerated in April, as services inflation re-accelerated back into the red-hot zone, and as durable goods prices rose, after falling for months, driven by a jump in […]
May 14, 2023 | Fast QT, Fewer Rate Hikes? Bank of Canada Has Shed Nearly Half of Pandemic QE Assets. And QT Continues Despite “Pause” in Rate Hikes
The Bank of Canada, which has paused its rate hikes for the second meeting in a row at 4.5%, isn’t pausing at all its Quantitative Tightening. Au contraire. It seems to follow the policy of faster QT instead of rate hikes. Total assets on the balance sheet today fell to C$365 billion, down by C$210 […]
May 11, 2023 | EVs Made the First Visible Dent into Gasoline Consumption
Gasoline consumption in the US dipped by 0.4% in 2022, from 2021, to 369 million gallons per day, all grades of gasoline combined, below where it had been in 2002, and down by 5.7% from 2019, and by 5.9% from the peak in 2018, according to data from the Energy Department’s EIA. And yet, in […]
May 3, 2023 | Powell Swats Down Rate Cut in 2023, Purposefully Leaves in Doubt a “Pause” for June Meeting
Fed chair Powell was bombarded by essentially the same question over and over again today during the press conference after the FOMC hiked its policy rates to 5.25% at the top of the range. Reporters were trying to nail him down: Has a decision been made about “pausing” the rate hikes in June? And he […]