The start of a new week and the US Treasury 10-year yield is up 10 basis points, always a noteworthy change. And with it, the 30-year mortgage rate should climb.
Since Biden/Pelosi/Schumer are in a lame duck session with Republicans taking the House in January, let’s see if Republicans can halt the insanity in Washington DC.
Be that as it may, Fed Funds Futures are pointing at a 50 basis point rate hike at the December 14th FOMC meeting.
Seriously, how is The Federal Reserve going to cope with $204 TRILLION … and growing Federal debt AND unfunded liabilities?
We are truly living in Strange Days under Joe Biden. And with Elon Musk’s release of Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, they call Joe Biden the Sleaze.
As The Federal Reserve tries to crush Bidenflation, we are seeing Fed Remittances to the US Treasury soaring (white line). At the same time, we see the Biden Administration draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (orange dashed line). And as The Fed tightens, M2 Money growth crashes (green line).
And with tech layoffs, I predict that 2023 job growth will be pretty bad.
As I have discussed before, I am a fan of ADP’s job reports and not a fan of the BLS NFP reports. As M2 Money growth slows, we can see declining ADP jobs added (yellow line), but BLS’s NFP report shows huge spikes.
Lastly, we have Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. SBF should be in custody for being involved in one of the biggest fraud cases in history, but like Hunter Biden, is roaming free and trying to raise MORE funds. Why are these lapses in justice occuring with “10% for The Big Guy” Biden?
As The Federal Reserve continues its assault on inflation by raising their target rate, Blackstone Inc.’s $69 billion real estate fund for wealthy individuals said it will limit redemption requests, one of the most dramatic signs of a pullback at a top profit driver for the firm and a chilling indicator for the property industry.
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. has been facing withdrawal requests exceeding its quarterly limit, a major test for the one of the private equity firm’s most ambitious efforts to reach individual investors. The news, in a letter Thursday, sent Blackstone stock falling as much as 10%, the biggest drop since March.
You can see the problem facing commercial real estate. Since December 31, 2021, NAREIT’s all-equity REIT index has fallen -23.6% while NAREIT’s mortgage REIT index has fallen -28.6%. It looks like Blackstone’s Real Estate Income Trust has a decline coming.
If I look at NCREIF’s commercial property index, we can see that The Fed helped boost CRE values. But what will happen if and when The Fed actually shrinks its balance sheet.
I call The Fed’s attempts at cooling inflation “Fed Dead Redemption” since it resulted in redemptions from real estate funds.
Unlike yesterday’s ADP jobs report (only 127k jobs added), the official Federal government report shows 263k jobs added. I like the ADP report, but The Fed pays attention to the BLS numbers. So, …
U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in November, and the nation’s unemployment rate stayed the same at 3.7 percent, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. Meanwhile, average hourly pay for workers rose 5.1 percent from a year earlier, to $32.82 from $31.23. But the US headline inflation rate at the last reading was 7.7% YoY that equates to -2.2% REAL Average Hourly Earnings YoY.
Mortgage rates fell to 6.51 yesterday, but expectations of Fed rate hikes (WIRP) and the 10-year Treasury yield are up today. In fact, the 10-year US Treasury yield is up 10 basis points this morning. This will likely translate to higher mortgage rate today.
Inflation is still the humming dragon crushhing the US middle class and at last report stood at 7.7% YoY. Average hourly earnings YoY rose to 5.1% in November, which is good. But inflation takes a huge bite out that number, resulting in -2.2% YoY REAL average hourly earnings.
And the US 10Y-2Y Treasury yield curve has been inverted for 109 straight days.
Here is the rest of the jobs report.
The biggest gainer? Motion picture and sound recording industries followed by logging (with rising energy prices, people have to heat their homes somehow).
Warning! Evidence of a US recession is appearing. And with a recession, prices will likely fall due to lack of demand.
Why might inflation be falling? Take a gander at ISM Prices Paid. They just fell to the lowest level since the infamous Covid economic shutdowns of 2020.
M2 Money growth YoY is the lowest in years, but The Fed’s balance sheet remains elevated. But apparently the Covid-related sugar rush has ended.
Yes, The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve remains inverted, for the 104th straight day. And Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate has dropped -57 basis points since November 3, 2022.
This comes after a gruesome Pending Home Sales and mortgage applications reports today.
The Federal Reserve continues to remove the monetary punch bowl despite the global yield curve inverting and The Fed fighting Bidenflation.
On the mortgage front, mortgage applications decreased 0.8 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 25, 2022. This week’s results include an adjustment for the observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.
The Refinance Index decreased 13 percent from the previous week and was 86 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 31 percent compared with the previous week and was 41 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
On the housing front, US pending home sales fell for a fifth month in October as demand continued to sag under the weight of high mortgage rates.
The National Association of Realtors index of contract signings to purchase previously owned homes decreased 4.6% last month, according to data released Wednesday. And fell -36.7% YoY.
All together now. Look at pending home sales YoY and mortgage purchase applications SA compared with M2 Money YoY.
The Covid outbreak of early 2020 begat a massive surge in monetary stimulus which has dissipated. Notice that home price growth is dissipating as well.
Also causing problems for housing is NEGATIVE REAL WAGE GROWTH. While the US is suffering from inflation and decling real wage growth, trading partner Germany has even a worse REAL WAGE GROWTH problem.
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