Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
The Imperial March from Star Wars should have been the theme for Bidenomics, the top-down government-directed economy (mainly to political donors). It will take a while for the economy to recover from its addiction to Federal government spending.
Speaking of The Empire, the New York Fed’s Empire State business activity survey declined to -19.30. Would Jerome Powell and The Fed have cut rates had they known about the Empire activity survey yesterday?
Emperor Palpatine. Aka, 10% Joe.
New USDA data reveals a third consecutive week of price declines at supermarkets.
But the media is always willing to blame Trump for anything, including eggs prices.
Velocity of M2 Money is back to where is was when Trump left office the first time.
Eggs versus M2 Money.
Riding the Trump wave of economic optimism!
The US economy is gradually recovering from Bidenomics (government/donor dictated spending). Mortgage applications increased 11.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 7, 2025.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 11.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 7 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 8 percent compared with the previous week and was 4 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The Refinance Index increased 16 percent from the previous week and was 90 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
Mortgage rates declined for the sixth consecutive week, with the 30-year fixed rate dropping to 6.67 percent, the lowest level since October 2024. As a result, applications increased over the week and were up 31 percent from a year ago.
Turnover speeds are arisin’!
Thank God President Auto Pen is out of office!
Inflation? Lower real wage growth? Excessive personal loan growth?? All resulting in historic subprime auto loan delinquency rate of 6.6%.
Auto Loan 60+ Day Delinquency Index
The US housing market is still suffering a hangover from Biden’s Presidency (high housing prices, high food prices, high inflation, high oil/gas prices, etc.) Housing prices are the highest in history, now we have FHA delinquencies at almost 15%.
Way to go, Joe!
German 10-year bond yields are trading above euro interest rate swaps for the first time in history (-12.62), a watershed moment for these markets that underlines just how much investors have soured on government debt.
Bund yields +30bps today – the biggest spike on record going back to 1990.
Is the US next?
The mortgage market is back! Time to polka!!
Mortgage applications increased 20.4 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 28, 2025.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 20.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 22 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 9 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week and was 2 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The Refinance Index increased 37 percent from the previous week and was 83 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
Thank God the adults are in charge in DC instead of the children we saw at Trump’s speech last night.
Trump inherited a brittle economy from “The Fool” Joe Biden. And it is shown up.
The Trump Administration is fighting the remnants of Biden’s policies by cutting spending (DOGE) and deregulation.
All this has resulted in a soaring US Dollar.
Tarot cards have officially renamed “The Fool” card as “The Biden.” Although in Washington DC, there is no shortage of fools (see Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rashida Talib (D-MI).
Housing is simply unaffordable in many parts of the USA and world. Its the same all over the world. except Romania and Finland.
The most unaffordble countries are Portugal, Canada, the USA, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. The most affordable? Romania, Finland, Italy, and Bulgaria.
For the USA, Hawaii and California are the least affordable while West Virginia and Iowa are the most affordable.
The US got hit with 2 deadly viruses in 2020. First, Covid-19 struck then another deadly virus struck in late 2020 with the election of DEI-obsessed Joe Biden, the worst President in history.
With rising interest rates and housing prices under “Clueless Joe,” buying conditions for housing plunged from around 160 under Trump to an abysmal 30 under Biden. And now Trump.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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