Housing Market

Mortgage Rate Rockets Up To 8%

Oct 18, 2023 1 min read

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rocketed up to 8.00% today. It is up from 7.57% on October 12 (chart). That's the highest it has been since most of the 1990s. The 10-year US Treasury bond yield rose to 4.91% today. That along with the unnerving crisis in the Middle East unnerved the stock market today. Mortgage applications to purchase new and existing homes is now

Ed Yardeni

Talking Heads Talk Stocks Down

Sep 26, 2023 2 min read paid

We were surprised that stock prices didn't drop yesterday along with bond prices. So we aren't surprised to see stock prices down today. Contributing to the selloff was JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who warned interest rates may need to rise further to subdue inflation. In an interview with The Times of India, he said that the Fed might have to raise the federal funds rate

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: August 21-25

Aug 19, 2023 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

Upside Surprises

Aug 16, 2023 2 min read paid

The economy isn't landing; it's flying high. Following better-than-expected July reports for housing starts and industrial production this morning, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking model raised Q3's real GDP growth rate to 5.8% (saar) from 5.0%, after raising it from 4.1% yesterday on a better-than-expected July retail sales report (chart). Consumer spending and residential investment are now tracking at

Ed Yardeni

The Promised Land

Jun 27, 2023 2 min read paid

The permabears will have to postpone their imminent recession yet again based on today's batch of US economic indicators, which suggests that our "rolling recession" is turning into a "rolling expansion." The housing market seems to be recovering nicely from its recession, which started early last year. The manufacturing sector is showing signs of bottoming, while nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft rose to

Ed Yardeni

Rolling Expansion?

Jun 20, 2023 2 min read paid

What happens after a rolling recession? Perhaps a rolling expansion as the economic sectors that fell into a recession recover. Today's housing starts report for May was certainly strong. Housing starts jumped 21.6% to 1.63 million units (saar) last month from April's 1.34 million (chart). It was the largest percentage gain since October 2016. A survey on Monday showed the National Association of

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: June 20-23

Jun 18, 2023 2 min read

It's a short and light week for economic data. We'll be focusing on May's Composite Cyclical Indicators (Thu). The index of Coincident Economic Indicators (CEI) is the best monthly indicator of the business cycle. It tracks the y/y growth rate of real GDP very closely (chart). It was up 1.7% y/y during April, while real GDP rose 1.6% during Q1.

Ed Yardeni

Progress In Debt Ceiling Talks Lifts Stock Prices

May 17, 2023 2 min read paid

Stock prices are up this morning on news that both the Democrats and the Republicans want to get a deal done on the debt ceiling issue. “I think at the end of the day we do not have a debt default,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told CNBC in a “Squawk Box” interview this morning. President Joe Biden echoed that sentiment later in remarks from the White House: “We’re going

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: May 15-19

May 13, 2023 2 min read paid

The week ahead is jampacked with coincident and leading economic indicators. The most up-to-the-minute ones will be May 12 mortgage applications (Wed) and May 13 jobless claims (Thu). The former seems to be bottoming suggesting that April housing starts (Wed) and existing home sales (Thu) might surprise to the upside, or at least not on the downside (chart) On a four-week moving average basis, jobless claims have moved higher recently

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: March 20-24

Mar 19, 2023 2 min read

The FOMC always seems to take center stage in the financial markets these days, and will certainly do so on Wednesday, when the next two-day meeting of the FOMC will end around noon. It will be followed by the release of the FOMC's statement at 2:00 pm and Fed Chair Powell's presser at 2:30 pm. He should be less hawkish than he was during

Ed Yardeni

More Soft Landing Stats

Feb 22, 2023 2 min read paid

No boom, no bust. That describes yesterday's flash estimates for February's M-PMI and NM-PMI released by S&P Global. They both track the comparable series compiled by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The flash M-PMI rose from 46.9 in January to 47.8 this month (chart). It suggests that the ISM's version of this index will uptick but remain below 50.

Ed Yardeni

Rent Inflation Is Moderating

Feb 21, 2023 2 min read paid

The CPI's rent of primary residence is showing no signs of peaking, rising to 8.6% y/y during January (chart). However, it is widely recognized that this measure is a laggard because it includes rents not only on new leases, but also outstanding ones. The market-based rent inflation indexes compiled by Zillow and ApartmentList have been plunging from around 17% a year ago to 6.9% and

Ed Yardeni

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