August data for the US housing market has been ‘mixed’ to say the least with a surge in new home sales (thanks to a massive rise in incentives from homebuilders) and a small decline (near multi-year lows), leaving this morning’s pending home sales data as the tie-breaker (with expectations of an ‘unch’ shift MoM).
It appears the drop in mortgage rates is driving some purchase activity as pending home sales soared 4.0% MoM in August – the most since March – dragging sales up 0.5% YoY.
Mortgage rates are falling, helping existing home sales. Note that the 30-year mortgage rate peaked at 18.63% in 1981.
It will take a while to recover from Biden’s “Reign of Error.” According the US Census Bureau, housing starts are 6.0 percent below the August 2024 rate.
Housing starts:
Single-familyย 890K SAAR, down 7.0% from 957K in July and theย lowest since July 2024
Multi-familyย 403K SAAR, down 11% from 453K in July and theย lowest since May.
Housing permits?
Single-familyย 856K SAAR, down 2.2% from 875K in July and theย lowest since March 2023
Multi-familyย 403K SAAR, down 6.7% from 432K in July and theย lowest since May 2024
Let’s see if Powell and The Gang drop rates 25 or 50 basis points at today’s FOMC meeting.
Between The Fed’s persistent policy errors and Biden’s centralized mismanagement of the economy, Biden’s Maladministration is the epitome of a “Reign of Error.”
The Fed will have to whip it good with rate cuts if the recession warnings are an indicator of what lies ahead for the US economy.
The ratio of The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) vs. The Conference Board’s Coincident Economic Index (CEI) ratio hasnโt been this low since 2008.
Fed Funds Futures are signalling rate cuts at the September 17th FOMC meeting and December 10th meetings.
Tavi Costa at Crescat Capital (founded by my former MBA student at University of Chicago Kevin Smith) produced this excellent chart of silver prices showing the cup and handle of silver prices.
The rise in silver prices corresponds with a deterioration of the US bond market. Look at Treasury futures courtesy of Bravos Research.
Of course, Washington DC’s insane spending has led to insane money printing by The Feral Reserve.
Everyone in Washington DC deserves a “Silver Cup of Failure” for uncontrolled government waste and spending and mismanagement by The Feral Reserve.
Doge is necessary to get close to closing the budget gap (tax receipts – spending). Biden left Trump and the US with an untenable fiscal situation (think Cloward/Piven). Extremely large debt load with debt maturing over the next couple of years. Thanks to former Treasury Secretary Janet “The Snake” Yellen government funding formula using ST government debt. And its time to pay the piper to pay for Biden’s overspending and Yellen’s Treasury mismanagement.
Most of the Treasury debt that Treasury Secretary Bessent must refinance is short-term.
And with interest rates higher under Trump/Bessent than Biden/Yellen, US Interest Payments on Public Debt is expected to keep rising.
And US trade balance fell to -140.5.
So, were Biden’s economic policies (and Yellen’s Treasury mismanagement) an intentional Cloward-Piven strategy?
Here are Columbia sociologists Cloward and Piven attending a bill signing by President Bill Clinton.
The April Jobs report blew away the tariff crash hysteria. 177k jobs were added, far better than the doomsayers predicted. Even better, more jobs went to native-born workers than foreign-born workers. Even better still, Federal jobs decreased (thanks to Doge).
The US labor market under the Biden administration “grew” almost entirely on the back of “foreign-born” workers, who – as we also first revealed and eventually was widely accepted – wereย primarily illegal aliens. But in April, we saw a reversal with native-born workers growing and foreign-born workers declining.
And Federal workers continue to decline.
The good news? The Fed will likely not change rates at the next meeting.
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