The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America amid the Now-Fizzled Rate-Cut Mania & Erstwhile Plunge in Mortgage Rates by Wolf Richter • Apr 30, 2024 • 145 Comments Rate-Cut Mania died, mortgage rates re-jumped to 7.5% today, but here’s what home prices did during Rate-Cut Mania.
Sagging Used-Car Prices, Spiking Maintenance & Repair Costs, and a Post-Bankruptcy Propaganda Coup Turn Toxic for Hertz by Wolf Richter • Apr 29, 2024 • 146 Comments Americans need lower car prices. But not Hertz. “The residual decline … was relative to both ICE vehicles and EVs”: Hertz
Money Market Funds, T-Bills, Large CDs, Small CDs: Americans Learn to Arbitrage the Higher-for-Longer Interest Rates by Wolf Richter • Apr 27, 2024 • 137 Comments There’s no need to still pay a “loyalty tax” to the banks.
Biggest Landlords Pile into “Build-to-Rent” Single-Family Houses, but Sell Older Houses into this Overpriced Market by Wolf Richter • Apr 24, 2024 • 100 Comments American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes sold over 3,000 older single-family houses in 2023.
Fed’s Liabilities and QT: as ON RRPs Plunge toward Zero, Operating Losses Begin to Decline by Wolf Richter • Apr 19, 2024 • 88 Comments After ON RRPs go to zero, reserves will decline, further reducing the Fed’s interest expenses and losses. But it’s not straightforward.
Home Sales Clobbered by Mortgage Rates. New Listings & Active Listings Surge. Most Price Reductions for any March in Years by Wolf Richter • Apr 18, 2024 • 159 Comments Price reductions of existing homes jump to 31.7% of active listings, highest since 2017.
Banks’ Exposure to CRE Loans by Bank Size by Wolf Richter • Apr 13, 2024 • 80 Comments When CRE hits investors, fine, they were paid to take those risks. But we’re a little more squeamish when it comes to banks.
Bank of Canada Balance Sheet QT Sheds 64% of Pandemic QE Assets, Indicates QT Might End in September 2025 by Wolf Richter • Apr 7, 2024 • 53 Comments “Balance sheet normalization” will continue even if the BoC cuts its rates. It’s all about “settlement balances.”
ECB Balance Sheet QT: -€2.2 Trillion from Peak, to €6.61 Trillion. Shed 25% of Total Assets, 53% of Pandemic QE by Wolf Richter • Apr 7, 2024 • 38 Comments Fed and ECB combined removed $4 trillion in liquidity. Inflation, after decades of calm, is hammering some sense into these central banks.
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.53 Trillion from Peak, to $7.44 Trillion, Lowest since February 2021. The BTFP Plunged by $34 Billion by Wolf Richter • Apr 4, 2024 • 137 Comments Quantitative Tightening has removed 37% of Treasury securities and 27% of MBS that pandemic QE had added.
