Credit-Market Mania Crushed “Yield Spreads” & Risk Premiums, but Corporate & CRE Borrowing Costs Are Still Much Higher by Wolf Richter • Dec 9, 2024 • 45 Comments Loosey-goosey financial conditions don’t mean low borrowing costs. They just mean narrow yield spreads.
Used-Vehicle Prices Turn into Inflation Headwind, after Historic 2-Year Plunge Helped Power the “Deceleration” of Core CPI by Wolf Richter • Dec 7, 2024 • 47 Comments Prices are rising again, amid tight supply, sharply reduced flow through the used-vehicle pipeline, and strong demand.
Labor Market Doing Fine. The Fed Can be “Careful” with Rate Cuts. Maybe Time for Some Wait-and-See? by Wolf Richter • Dec 6, 2024 • 73 Comments Payrolls & wages jump, prior 2 months revised higher, solid bounce-back from Hurricanes and Boeing strike. 3-month average payrolls +173,000!
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$98 Billion in November, -$2.07 Trillion from Peak, to $6.90 Trillion, Lowest since May 2020 by Wolf Richter • Dec 5, 2024 • 71 Comments Quantitative Tightening has shed 43% of the assets the Fed had added during pandemic QE. Bank-panic facility BTFP is vanishing.
Everybody Should Get Used to these Mortgage Rates, Says Fannie Mae CEO: Mortgage Rates, 10-Year Treasury Yields, QT, and Spreads by Wolf Richter • Dec 5, 2024 • 62 Comments “Current mortgage rates and Fannie Mae’s forecast for 2025 rates are well in line with rates over the past several decades.”
Cut the Price and They Will Come: New-Vehicle Sales Jump amid Big Discounts and Incentives, as Inventory Balloons by Wolf Richter • Dec 4, 2024 • 91 Comments But prices are still way too high, and automakers are not cutting them nearly enough.
Underlying Job Market Dynamics Begin to Retighten. The Fed Is Already Backpedaling on the Pace and Depth of Rate Cuts by Wolf Richter • Dec 3, 2024 • 99 Comments Job openings and voluntary quits jumped by the most in over a year, layoffs and discharges plunged.
Factory Construction Spending Soars to New Record, +16% YoY, +242% since 2019: Result of Corporate & Strategic Rethink by Wolf Richter • Dec 2, 2024 • 101 Comments Trump’s tariffs — a tax on profit margins of US & foreign companies — will push in the same direction as Biden’s taxpayer-and-debt-funded incentives.
Office CMBS Delinquency Rate Spikes to 10.4%, Just Below Worst of Financial Crisis Meltdown. Fastest 2-Year Spike Ever by Wolf Richter • Nov 30, 2024 • 83 Comments Office-to-residential conversions are growing, but are minuscule because not many towers are suitable for conversion.
Federal Government Interest-Payments-to-Tax-Receipts Ratio Spikes, Debt-to-GDP Worsens Further in Q3 by Wolf Richter • Nov 29, 2024 • 149 Comments The magnitude and speed of the ratio’s 2-year spike is unprecedented in modern US history. It does not look good.
