17 Days Later? Mortgage Demand Decreased -6% WoW In Weekly Survey, Purchase Apps Lowest Since 1995 (Only 17 Days Left For Strategic Petroleum Reserve)

Another week under Biden, another economic disaster. This time, its the mortgage market with mortgage demand (applications) down 6% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending September 29, 2023.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 6.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 7 percent from the previous week and was 11 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 6 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 6 percent compared with the previous week and was 22 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The purchase market slowed to the lowest level of activity since 1995, as the rapid rise in rates pushed an increasing number of potential homebuyers out of the market. ARM loan applications picked up over the week and the ARM share increased to 8 percent, as some borrowers searched for ways to lower their payments.

The US 30-Year Mortgage Rate Tops 7.5% for First Time Since 2000.

On the energy front, where we are represented by former Michigan governnor Jennifer Granholm and former South Bend Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, we see that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to only 17 days left.

Bidenomics And The BIG Corporate Bias! Smaller Companies Paying Record Interest Without Boost From Interest Income (US Treasury Yield Curve Remains Inverted With Massive Fed Stimulus Outstanding)

We know that the horribly-flawed Bidenomics doesn’t work, unless you are a large corporate donor in green energy. For the rest, particulary small companies, Bidenomics is a total bust.

Under Bidenomics (the Soviet-style command economy), small companies are paying reconrd interest expense WITHOUT a major boost from interest income. Well, ain’t that a kick in the head … to most companies.

Pension funds that invested in “safe” MBS are finding that MBS isn’t so safe under inflation.

Look at the 10Y-2Y yield curve since Covid. I had a slight surge by March 2021, then has flattened then inverted as The Fed’s balance sheet still remains above $8 trillion.

Face it. The Biden Administration and Congress are owned by BIG corporate interests. BIG defense, BIG tech. BIG Pharma, BIG banking, BIG auto, BIG Union, BIG anything.

No wonder the Obamas were seen snorkeling in The Med with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. BIG Hollywood!

Bidenomics In Action! US New Home Sales Crashed -8.7% MoM In August As Mortgage Rates Surge

Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden was laser focused on reducing inflation. At least he isn’t laser focused on little girls … for the moment. But he still does seem laser focused on providing Ukraine with billions of dollars.

After months of soaring in the face of higher mortgage rates (and higher prices), new home sales hit a wall in August, crashing 8.7% MoM – the biggest drop since Sept 2022 (and four times worse than the -2.2% MoM expected)…

But at least new home sales were up on a YoY basis.

hat is the lowest SAAR since March…

The median sales price of a new home edged lower to $430,300 (average home price rose), according to the Commerce Department’s report.

Despite the decline, that’s still well above pre-pandemic levels.

As a reminder, according to a report released Friday by Redfin Corp, nearly 60,000 deals to purchase homes fell through in August (roughly 16% of homes that went under contract last month, the biggest share of cancellations since October).

“I’ve seen more homebuyers cancel deals in the last six months than I’ve seen at any point during my 24 years of working in real estate,” Jaime Moore, a Redfin agent, said in the report.

“They’re getting cold feet.”

A potential silver lining is the rising in supply (but now much that is driven by a decline in the denominator – homes sold – vs numerator – homes available; is unclear)…

Is the catch-down to reality about to begin?

Source: Bloomberg

They should, given that homebuilders can’t be filling this gap – between the current 30Y mortgage rate and the effective rates that borrowers are currently paying on their home loans – (i.e. subsidizing new home sales) forever…

Source: Bloomberg

And investors are starting to wake up too…

Is Jay Powell about to get the ‘affordability’ compression he was hoping for?

Is Bidenomics The Highway To Hell? US Existing Home Sales Declines 17 Of Last 19 Months As Fed Slowly Shrinks Balance Sheet (Federal Debt Exceeds $33 Trillion As Unfunded Liabities Exceed $194 TRILLION)

Is Bidenomics the proverbial “Highway to hell”?

The most recent report on US exisiting home sales showed that sales decreased in 17 of the last 19 months as The Fed tightens monetary policy to combat inflation caused by … 1) The Fed and 2) Bidenomics spending on green energy.

The US housing market will be “back in black” once Biden and Congress stop their reckless spending and borrowing. Biden has added $5,352,202 to the national debt since being selected (not by me!). That is a 19% increase in The Federal debt in just 33 months!

Not to mention the ludicrous $194 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities that the geezers in the Biden Administration (Biden is 80 and slipping into dementia) and the Geriatric wing of Congress (the US Senate) is home to fossils like Mitch McConnell (not looking well) and Diane Feinstein (90 and looking poorly). I didn’t forget about Nancy Pelosi (Communist-California) who is 83 and running for re-election. Younger doesn’t necessarily mean better since Pelosi’s nephew California governor Gavin Newsom is 55 years old and helped destroy California’s economy. Of course, the DNC will probably selected Newsom to replace scandal-ridden Biden as the Democrat in order to finish the job Obama started.

Existing-home sales slipped again in August as rising mortgage rates make housing prices the least affordable ever. Despite denials in many corners, a crash is underway.

The National Association of Realtors^® NAR^® reports Existing-Home Sales Decreased 0.7% in August.

Highlights

Existing-home sales retreated 0.7% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.04 million.
Sales dropped 15.3% from one year ago.
The median existing-home sales price climbed 3.9% from one year ago to $407,100, an increase of 3.9% from August 2022 ($391,700). It’s the third consecutive month the median sales price surpassed $400,000.
The inventory of unsold existing homes dipped 0.9% from the prior month to 1.1 million at the end of August, or the equivalent of 3.3 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace.
First-time buyers were responsible for 29% of sales in August, down from 30% in July and identical to August 2022.
All-cash sales accounted for 27% of transactions in August, up from 26% in July and 24% in August 2022.

And mortgage rates are now up to 23 year highs!

If Biden bows out and Newsom runs for President … and loses, Newsom always has a career in Hollywood in vampire movies. “I will suck your (economic) blood!” – Count Newsom.

Homebuilder Sentiment Goes Negative For First Time In 7 Months, Thanks To Bidenomics (Mortgage Rates UP 152% Under Biden)

Bidenomics, the economic gift to big donors and a boot up the backside of middle class and low wage workers, keeps on giving. Now its homebuilder sentiment falling to 45.

U.S. homebuilders are feeling pessimistic about their business for the first time in seven months, thanks to stubbornly high mortgage rates.

Builder confidence in the single-family housing market fell 5 points in September to 45 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. The decrease follows a 6-point drop in August. Anything below 50 is considered negative.

Mortgage rates are up 152% under Biden’s Reign of Economic Error. Note the big assist the economy got from Covid-related Fed stimulus (red line). The Fed’s balance sheet is still over $8 trillion.

Bidenomics and The Fed have started a fire that The Fed is unwilling to extinguish. Hey Jay, its not magic!

Inflation Reanimator! Producer Prices Soar In August As Goods Inflation Reignites While WTI Crude Hits $90

Jerome Powell is the God of Hellfire and he brought us …. FIRE! By rapildy raising The Fed’s target rate rapidly. And then sending mixed signals as inflation begins heating up … again.

WTI crude just hit $90. Rising oil prices may be one of the reasons.

After yesterday’s hotter than expected rebound in CPI, all eyes are on PPI for signs that the pipeline for inflation may be more dove-friendly.

It wasn’t!

Producer Prices rose 0.7% MoM in August (up from +0.3% in July and hotter than the +0.4% exp). That is the hottest PPI since June 2022, and pushed YoY prices up 1.6%…

Source: Bloomberg

Goods prices are reaccelerating fast, now back into inflation YoY (as Services cost growth slowed only modestly)…

Source: Bloomberg

As a reminder, much of last month’s PPI rise was driven by a big jump in portfolio management costs – as stocks soared. August saw a further rise in those costs…

Source: Bloomberg

More problematically, the pipeline for PPI appears to have inflected as intermediate demand is re-accelerating…

Source: Bloomberg

This is not what The Fed wanted to hear.

US Credit Default Swaps Price Now Above Spain As US Debt Gets Close To $33 TRILLION And $194 TRILLION In Unfunded Federal Promises (Joy To The Globalist Elites!)

I ain’t never been to Spain, but the US under Biden is like Spain in terms of default risk.

Actually, I have to Spain numerous times and love visiting Barcelona. But the US debt fiasco under Biden and Congressional spending sprees has led to … US credit default swap being priced worse than Spain’s CDS.

With Biden/Congress orgy of spending (and a declining economy in many important respects), the US is seeing Federal debt near $33 TRILLION and even worse, unfunded Federal liabilities (promises, promises) are at $193 TRILLION, almost 6 times the current Federal debt load.

If you are into archaelogy and fossils, Nancy Pelosi (83) has announced that she is running for re-election to The House. Hasn’t San Francisco suffered enough under Feinstein, Newsom and Mayor Breed?

Or as 3 Dog Night sang, “Joy to the globalist elites!”

Bidenomics Strikes Again! US Mortgage Purchase Mortgage Demand Lowest in 28 Years As Bank Deposits Down -4% YoY (Purchase Demand Down -28% YoY)

Bidenomics’ new themesong, “I’ve youv’e got the money, honey, I’ve got the time.” Otherwise, sod off.

Speaking of Bidenomics, US mortgage purchase demand just declined to the lowest level in 28 years.

Mortgage applications decreased 2.9 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending September 1, 2023.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 5 percent from the previous week and was 30 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 5 percent compared with the previous week and was 28 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

This is not good.

Bank deposits, a source of bank lending, are down -4% YoY as The Fed tightens rates.

Here is Lefty Frizzell’s original version of the Bidenomic’s themesong “If you’ve got the money, honey,I’ve got the time.” Like big donors receiving green energy subsidies. But not middle class mortgage borrowers.

Bidenomics 101 (Income): Real Gross Domestic Income Growth NEGATIVE For 3 Consecutive Quarters As M2 Money Growth Worst Since 1933 And The New Deal (Only 187k Jobs Added In August And ALL Of Last Year’s Jobs Added Were Revised Downwards)

The glories of Bidenomics is on fully display. Despite what Lyin’ Biden says, Bidenomics is only working for the elites (top 1%). How Soviet/CCP command economy of him!

Here is an ugly chart showing Bidenomics in action! We all know that Covid unleashed a torrent of Fed monetary stimulus AND Federal spending on Covid relief and green energy subsidies (most to large Democrats donors). BUT we now have experienced 3 consectutive quarters of negative gross domestic income (GDI) growth. And nominal GDI growth is falling with falling M2 Money growth.

And today’s jobs report for August showed that only 187k jobs were added.

Superficially this would have meant an unchanged print from last month when the BLS also reported 187K jobs, however in keeping with recent trends that number was revised – drumroll – lower again, to 157K, meaning that every single monthly payrolls print in 20-23 has been revised lower (see chart below), a 12-sigma probability and virtually impossible unless there was political pressure to massage the data higher initially and then revise it lower when nobody is looking. (As if the mainstream media is at all honest!)

But wait there’s more: while July was revised down by 30K from +187,000 to +157,000, June was revised even more, by 80,000, from +185,000 to +105,000, which means that a number that was originally reported as 209K has been reivsed 50% lower, to 105K and a collapse vs original expectations of 230K. Here, the BLS was proud to report that “with these revisions, employment in June and July combined is 110,000 lower than previously reported.”

And we have The Conference Board’s confidence index at -65. Yikes!

Finally, we have the 10Y-3M UST spread SCREAMING recession!

So, the economy is slowing under Bidenomics and Cadavar Joe.

Will Cadavar Joe actually go out on the campaign trail and debate ANY Democrat or Republican?? Remember, this is the man with the nuclear launch codes.

Another Bidenomics Report Bites The Dust! Challenger Jobs Cuts Increase By 267% YoY (Biden Bowl?)

Another (economic report) bites the dust!

U.S.-based employers announced 75,151 cuts in August, a 217% increase from the 23,697 cuts announced one month prior. It is 267% higher than the 20,485 cuts announced in the same month in 2022,

As M2 Money growth collapses to Great Depression levels. Instead of The Dust Bowl, we can call this The Biden Bowl.

This great meme can be replaced by “Our President is as cold as your ex’s heart.”