Treasury Yield Curve Flattens as 10-Year Yield Falls, Short-Term Yields Stay Put: Fed’s Pivot to Wait-and-See in Inflationary Times. But Mortgage Rates Stay Near 7%

by Wolf Richter • Feb 22, 2025 • 2 Comments

Long-term yields matter to the economy. So how to get the 10-year yield down? Not with rate cuts, obviously. That flopped, had the opposite effect. But with a three-pronged strategy.

Buyers Strike Crushes Green Shoots of Demand for Existing Homes, amid Surging Supply, Active Listings & Days on Market

by Wolf Richter • Feb 21, 2025 • 34 Comments

Demand destruction because prices are too high after the 50% price explosion during the pandemic.

Inflation Spikes to 4.0% in Japan, Much Worse than in the US. BOJ Babied its Rate to Just 0.5%, with More Baby Hikes in View

by Wolf Richter • Feb 21, 2025 • 46 Comments

The strategy: Let inflation rip to bring the horrible debt-to-GDP ratio down. Households & yield investors pay for it. Turns out, no free lunches after all.

Dear WOLF STREET Email Subscribers: I Changed the Email Service Provider, and Some Readers Have Run into Some Kinks

by Wolf Richter • Feb 20, 2025 • 22 Comments

Here is what you can do to resolve the kinks.

Our Drunken Sailors and their Credit Cards: Delinquencies, Balances, Burden, and Available Credit in Q4 2024

by Wolf Richter • Feb 19, 2025 • 36 Comments

More people, more workers, higher incomes, more spending. Banks eager to lend at high rates and collect swipe fees.

The Collapse of the EV SPACs: Nikola Joins EV SPAC Bankruptcy Lineup. Here Are Those Already Bankrupt, and Those Not Yet

by Wolf Richter • Feb 19, 2025 • 69 Comments

The Consensual Hallucination that drove the EV SPAC mania didn’t die with the EV SPACs; it moved on to other stocks.

Auto Debts, Auto-Loan-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies for Prime & Subprime: Our Drunken Sailors and their Auto Loans

by Wolf Richter • Feb 18, 2025 • 58 Comments

Subprime, which means “bad credit” and not “low income,” is always in trouble. But it’s only 14% of auto loans. Prime is in pristine condition.

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, Jan 2025: The Price Drops & Gains in 33 of the Largest Housing Markets

by Wolf Richter • Feb 16, 2025 • 119 Comments

21 metros below 2022 highs: Austin, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Antonio, Denver, Sacramento, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Seattle, Tampa, Atlanta, Portland, Salt Lake, Raleigh, Charlotte, Nashville, Las Vegas, Minneapolis…

Here Come the HELOCs: Mortgages, Housing-Debt-to-Income-Ratio, Serious Delinquencies & Foreclosures in Q4 2024

by Wolf Richter • Feb 15, 2025 • 66 Comments

HELOC balances surged, mortgage balances barely budged: More households, more income, more housing debt.

About that Retail Sales Plunge in the Headlines: A Romp through the Massive Seasonal Adjustments this Time of the Year

by Wolf Richter • Feb 14, 2025 • 41 Comments

Retail sales in January were actually up by 4.8% year-over-year.

Household Debts, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies, Collections, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies: Our Drunken Sailors’ Debts in Q4 2024

by Wolf Richter • Feb 13, 2025 • 114 Comments

More people, more workers, more income, more debt.

PPI Inflation Accelerates to +3.5% yoy, Worst in 2 Years, Driven by Services amid Massive Up-Revision of Services Inflation

by Wolf Richter • Feb 13, 2025 • 95 Comments

Inflation is festering and accelerating in services (two-thirds of overall PPI), not in goods.

Beneath the Skin of CPI Inflation: Worst Month-to-Month Acceleration of CPI since Aug 2023, on Spikes in Used Vehicles, Non-Housing Services, Food, Energy

by Wolf Richter • Feb 12, 2025 • 100 Comments

Inflation has been going in the wrong direction relentlessly month-to-month since June.

Treasury Market’s Inflation Expectations Become “Unanchored”

by Wolf Richter • Feb 11, 2025 • 134 Comments

Why the Fed vigorously backpedaled on further rate cuts and pivoted to wait-and-see: Long-term interest rates matter.

There Hasn’t Been Much if Any Reduction in WFH in over Two Years, Despite the Hype about RTO

by Wolf Richter • Feb 10, 2025 • 174 Comments

Hopes that Return to Office will bail out office CRE seem premature: data on office attendance and Working from Home.

Used Car & Truck Prices Heading Higher on Tight Supply, Strong Demand, after U-Turn in mid-2024 from Historic Plunge. Used EV Prices Jump

by Wolf Richter • Feb 8, 2025 • 88 Comments

Already putting pressure on CPI inflation. Now comes tax-refund season.

Huge Upward Adjustment to Employment & Labor Force as Wave of Immigrants is Finally Included, Unemployment Drops, Wage Growth Accelerates: The Annual Revisions Are Here

by Wolf Richter • Feb 7, 2025 • 65 Comments

The Fed, after complaining about missing immigrants in labor market data, now has further support for its pivot to wait-and-see.

Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$42 Billion in January, -$2.15 Trillion from Peak, to $6.81 Trillion, Lowest since May 2020. Bye-Bye BTFP

by Wolf Richter • Feb 6, 2025 • 64 Comments

Quantitative Tightening has shed 45% of Pandemic-QE. Bank liquidity facilities at or near zero.

The Fed’s QT Could Go on for a Lot Longer: The Tools Are in Place, incl. the Revived Standing Repo Facility

by Wolf Richter • Feb 6, 2025 • 41 Comments

QT has drained ON RRPs to their normal level of near-zero, while QT hasn’t even touched reserve balances yet.

Trade Deficit in Goods Worsens to All-Time Worst in 2024, Small Surplus in Services Rises, Overall Trade Deficit Worsens by 17%

by Wolf Richter • Feb 5, 2025 • 133 Comments

Goods deficits & Corporate America: Vietnam jumps to #3 on transshipments from China to dodge tariffs. Tiny Ireland jumps to #4 on trade invoicing to dodge US corporate income taxes.