This will not end well. We’ve got trouble in (Potomac) River City!
Credit card interest rates have skyrocketed to a shocking 21.51%. Moreover, credit card debt has hit record highs1.51%.

Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
This will not end well. We’ve got trouble in (Potomac) River City!
Credit card interest rates have skyrocketed to a shocking 21.51%. Moreover, credit card debt has hit record highs1.51%.

Kamala Harris, despite being VP for almost 4 years, is going to annouce her plans for taming inflation. Why doesn’t she do it now?? What Harris can’t control is The Federal Reserve that is losing money at breakneck speed.

Here is The Fed’s balance sheet.

I shudder to think what Harris will propose to solve the highest bankrupty (Chap 11) rate in 13 years. Probably more Bidenomics (big wealth transfers to large corporations/donors).

Meanwhile, foreigns pulled a record amount of funds from ailing China.

Kamala Harris will say anything to get elected, then fall back on her Communist agenda.

We know several things about the yield curve. First, it goes negative before recessions. Second, it is related to the inverse of The Fed’s target rate (blue line).

How about the US mortgage rate? Generally, US Mortgage rates are inverse to the 10Y-3M yield curve, but lately the US mortgage rate (pink circle) have declined with the 10Y-3M yield curve.

The yield curve does forecast recessions, but is unreliable in forecasting mortgage rate movements.

The slowing US economy has a silver lining: Treasury and mortgage rates are declining. And the is spurring faster mortgage prepayments.
Mortgage applications increased 6.9 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Applications Survey for the week ending August 2, 2024.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 6.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 6 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 0.3 percent compared with the previous week and was 11 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The Refinance Index increased 16 percent from the previous week and was 59 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) decreased to 6.55 percent from 6.82 percent, with points decreasing to 0.58 from 0.62 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.

The deciine in rates led to an increase in MBS convexity.

Watch out! Mortgage convexity continues to rise!

Meanwhile, Kamala “The Kommie” Harris laughs.

The Fed’s theme song: Keep on printing!
Look at this chart of the S&P 500 index against M2 Money stock.

And this chart of Case-Shiller home prices against M2 Money.

Bottom line? The Fed has to keep on printing money. Otherwise, the US economy will collapse like a cheap building.
Here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell creating assets bubbles.

Remember the TV show “The Biggest :Loser”? That show was about weight loss.
Now The Federal Reserve has posted a record loss of $114 BILLION IN 2023.

The cause of the loss? Massive expansion of The Fed’s balance sheet coupled with rising interest rates. The two year track record of The Fed is truly appaling. With a bloated balance sheet, rising interest rates have caused staggering losses.

The Fed is the biggest loser!

And the biggest losers!

The US commercial real estate sector is dying, like an episode of The Twillight Zone.
Example? This is 135 W 50th St in NYC. In 2006, this building sold for $332 million. Yesterday it sold for $8.5 million at auction. A 97% discount!

It is mostly smaller banks with large CRE exposure.

Regulate! Regulate! Dance to THEIR music!
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Biden/Harris heaped droves of regulations on American families in the amount of $15,000 per family.
Here is a breakdown of the annual cost of regulations:

And “China” Kamala (ChiKam) plans even MORE regulations!
DC bureaucrats are out of control. Treasury Secretary Yellen calls for $78 TRILLION to tackle climate change. So to quote The Carpenters, they’ve only just begun to regulate.

Cacklenomics strikes again!
The University of Michigan consumer survey revealed that buying conditions for housing just hit an all-time low.

High house prices and high mortgage rates aren’t helping.

Purchase loan demand keeps dropping.

Shape of things. Thw Fed will likely cut rates shortly helping the flagging mortgage market
The US Treasury yield curve, of Jay Powell and The Blackhearts, .js the least inverted in 2 years, signalling an impending Fed rate cut.

The Fed loves manipulating interest rates!
You must be logged in to post a comment.