Mortgage Rates Explode, 2-Year & 10-Year Treasury Yields Spike, Monster Rate-Cut Hopes Doused, Inflation Fears Resurface: Yield Curve Before & After the Rate Cut by Wolf Richter • Oct 5, 2024 • 73 Comments The yield curve moved further toward un-inversion, but not the way it was hoped.
OK, Forget it, False Alarm, Labor Market Is Fine, Bad Stuff Last Month Was Revised Away, Wages Jumped. No More Rate Cuts Needed? by Wolf Richter • Oct 4, 2024 • 213 Comments Pandemic distortions and millions of migrants suddenly entering the labor market, who are hard to track, have wreaked havoc on data accuracy.
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$66 Billion in Sept., -$1.92 Trillion from Peak, to $7.05 Trillion, Back to May 2020. To Drop Below $7 Trillion in 1-2 Months by Wolf Richter • Oct 3, 2024 • 72 Comments Quantitative Tightening has shed 40% of the assets added during pandemic QE.
Here Come the Vacant Homes: New Listings Jump when they Normally Drop in September, Active Listings Pile up, Listing Prices Drop below 2 Years Ago. Buyers on Strike, Prices too High by Wolf Richter • Oct 3, 2024 • 79 Comments Sellers coming out of the closet with their vacant homes. Active listings exploded the most in San Diego (+77%).
Ugly Q3 for ICE Vehicles. Total Q3 Sales Dropped Year-over-Year. But EV Sales Jumped, even at GM & Ford by Wolf Richter • Oct 2, 2024 • 56 Comments Prices too high, automakers too slow cutting them from the pandemic spike. Stellantis sales plunged 20%, a fiasco.
Tesla’s Global Deliveries Rise, Best Q3 Ever, But Not Enough to Fix the Shattered High-Growth Story by Wolf Richter • Oct 2, 2024 • 87 Comments Cybertruck production ramping up, starting to show up in the numbers (a little). Long way to go.
Epic Office Glut Hits Records in San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington DC. Dallas Availability Rate Dips to 30%, Houston rises to 29% by Wolf Richter • Oct 1, 2024 • 44 Comments The “war for space” before the pandemic unravels into biggest office glut ever.
Balance of Power Changed, Employers Re-exert Control, but also Cling to their Workers by Wolf Richter • Oct 1, 2024 • 88 Comments Fewer workers quit (rattled by layoff headlines?), so fewer vacant slots to fill and less hiring. But actual layoffs are at historic lows.
CRE Mess Not Letting Up: CMBS Delinquency Rates Jump in September as Office, Retail, and Lodging Deteriorate Further by Wolf Richter • Sep 30, 2024 • 57 Comments Rate cuts cannot fix the structural issues crushing office & retail CRE. But industrial, fueled by ecommerce, is in good condition.
Status of the US Dollar as Global Reserve Currency: Share Drops to Lowest since 1995. Central Banks Diversify to “Nontraditional” Currencies and Gold by Wolf Richter • Sep 28, 2024 • 145 Comments But China’s renminbi keeps losing ground.
Consumer Income & Savings Rate Revised Massively Higher for 2 Years, Spending Revised Up Too. Stunning Numbers by Wolf Richter • Sep 27, 2024 • 79 Comments Our Drunken Sailors earned and saved a lot more than we thought, spent more too, causing substantial up-revisions to post-pandemic GDP.
Fed Favored Annual Core PCE Price Index Accelerates to 2.7%, Highest since April, on Higher Core Services Inflation (+3.8%). Durable Goods -2.2%, Energy -10% by Wolf Richter • Sep 27, 2024 • 85 Comments Housing costs jumped. Stubbornly high housing inflation has frustrated Powell for a long time.
Corporate Pricing Power and Therefore Inflation Not Vanquished, Says Renewed Spike in Corporate Profits in Most Industries by Wolf Richter • Sep 26, 2024 • 98 Comments More evidence that underlying inflation dynamics are thriving.
Here Comes the Inventory of New Spec Houses, Highest since 2009. Sales Jump, Builders Take Share from Homeowners by Wolf Richter • Sep 25, 2024 • 111 Comments This buildup of completed single-family houses is a factor in resolving the price dislocations of the overall housing market.
Who Holds all these US Treasury Securities? Update on the Investors in the Ballooning US National Debt in Q2 by Wolf Richter • Sep 24, 2024 • 94 Comments As the Fed is unloading them, others are loading up.
Job Losses Pile Up at Tech & Social Media Companies in San Francisco & Silicon Valley after Reckless Hiring Frenzy by Wolf Richter • Sep 24, 2024 • 123 Comments A reckoning with budding parallels to the Dotcom Bubble & Bust, while other sectors continue to grow. Unemployment rate rose to 3.9%.
Days after Rate Cut, S&P’s Flash PMI Sees Rising Inflation and Exhorts the Fed to “Move Cautiously” with “Further Rate Cuts” by Wolf Richter • Sep 23, 2024 • 130 Comments “The “reacceleration of inflation” suggests “the Fed cannot totally shift its focus away from its inflation target.”
The Yield Curve Before & After the Rate Cut: Why Have Longer-Term Yields Risen since the Rate Cut? Already Priced in? Inflation Concerns as Policy Loosens in a Decent Economy? by Wolf Richter • Sep 21, 2024 • 156 Comments Mortgage rates also ticked up.
Tesla Model Y Now Just a Hair from #1 Bestselling Model in the US, Toyota RAV4. Former #1 Ford F-150 is #3. Stellantis Plunges off Greed Cliff. EV Share Rises to 9.0% by Wolf Richter • Sep 20, 2024 • 161 Comments Rankings of top models & automakers by registrations in the US.
Demand for Existing Homes Wilts, Supply Spikes to Highest for any August since 2018, Prices Dip, Despite Mortgage Rates that Have Plunged for 10 Months by Wolf Richter • Sep 19, 2024 • 149 Comments Because prices are still way too high. So the Buyers’ Strike continues.
