Junk-Bond Issuance Nearly Doubles YTD, amid Feverish Demand in La-la-Land and Ultra-Loose Financial Conditions by Wolf Richter • May 10, 2024 • 41 Comments Companies, seeing Higher-for-Longer, take advantage of it to lock in historically narrow spreads and still low yields.
Vacation-Rental SPAC Vacasa Restructures. Shares -97% in 2.5 Years as Public Company by Wolf Richter • May 10, 2024 • 36 Comments Consensual Hallucination wiped out investors, but Wall Street got the fees.
Our Favorite Recession Indicator: Next Recession Keeps Moving Further Out by Wolf Richter • May 9, 2024 • 161 Comments It’s time again to look at the trends in claims for unemployment insurance benefits.
Ad-Tech Outfit DoubleVerify Plunges 40% Today, -62% from Peak, 3 Years after IPO. Nabs WOLF STREET Downgrade to “Should Have Never Bought” by Wolf Richter • May 8, 2024 • 78 Comments We have a special place in our heart for DoubleVerify because it blacklists WOLF STREET in the “brand safety” services it touts to advertisers.
Used Car Prices Continue Historic Plunge, Wholesale Prices Gave up 59% of Crazy Pandemic Spike by Wolf Richter • May 7, 2024 • 96 Comments Even during tax refund season! Exactly what Americans need. But it’s not helpful for big fleets, such as Hertz.
Buffett Invests in T-bills instead of Stocks, Waits for Bad Stuff to Happen, Cash is King at 5%-plus by Wolf Richter • May 6, 2024 • 214 Comments When the Oracle of Omaha gets dark-ish on stocks at these prices, he isn’t taken seriously, suddenly. It’s only when he hypes stocks that everyone jumps in behind him.
The Reasons the Fed’s Bowman is “Willing” to Hike Rates if “Data Indicate Progress on Inflation Has Stalled or Reversed” by Wolf Richter • May 5, 2024 • 103 Comments She nails it with her list of inflation-fueling factors. It parallels what Powell said more softly at the press conference.
The Inflation Surge, Effects of this Sudden Divergence between the Fed and other Central Banks, the Corporate & Government Debt Bubbles, Housing, and the New & Used Car Markets Now by Wolf Richter • May 4, 2024 • 57 Comments Wolf Richter on “This Week in Money.”
Which Industries Lost Jobs, Which Gained Jobs: Longer-Term Employment Trends in Charts by Wolf Richter • May 3, 2024 • 49 Comments New all-time highs: Construction, Professional & Business Services, Healthcare, Wholesale trade. Layoffs whack Information.
Jobs, Wages, Mass Immigration, Full- and Part-Time Workers, Unemployment, Prime-Age Participation Rate, and Multiple Jobholders (who are they anyway?) by Wolf Richter • May 3, 2024 • 71 Comments But the undercount of mass-immigration distorts the household data.
Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.60 Trillion from Peak, to $7.36 Trillion, Lowest since December 2020 by Wolf Richter • May 2, 2024 • 209 Comments Quantitative Tightening has removed 38% of Treasury securities and 27% of MBS that pandemic QE had added.
Delinquencies of Floating-Rate Office CMBS Loans Hit 20%, But Fixed-Rate Loans at 4.7% by Wolf Richter • May 2, 2024 • 20 Comments Revenge of the floating-rate CRE loans: Ironically, use of floating-rate office loans ballooned as interest rates rose.
Oh Deary, Where Did my Rate Cuts Go? Fed’s Wait-and-See Now Entrenched? And Suddenly Lots of Talk about “Rate Hikes” by Wolf Richter • May 1, 2024 • 166 Comments What Powell Said about rate hikes, no rate cuts, rate cuts, and the QT slowdown while getting rid of MBS entirely.
Fed Holds Rates at 5.50% Top of Range, QT Slowdown Starts in June, Acknowledged Inflation is a Problem Again by Wolf Richter • May 1, 2024 • 193 Comments New language: “In recent months, there has been a lack of further progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent inflation objective.”
The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America amid the Now-Fizzled Rate-Cut Mania & Erstwhile Plunge in Mortgage Rates by Wolf Richter • Apr 30, 2024 • 145 Comments Rate-Cut Mania died, mortgage rates re-jumped to 7.5% today, but here’s what home prices did during Rate-Cut Mania.
Sagging Used-Car Prices, Spiking Maintenance & Repair Costs, and a Post-Bankruptcy Propaganda Coup Turn Toxic for Hertz by Wolf Richter • Apr 29, 2024 • 146 Comments Americans need lower car prices. But not Hertz. “The residual decline … was relative to both ICE vehicles and EVs”: Hertz
Money Market Funds, T-Bills, Large CDs, Small CDs: Americans Learn to Arbitrage the Higher-for-Longer Interest Rates by Wolf Richter • Apr 27, 2024 • 137 Comments There’s no need to still pay a “loyalty tax” to the banks.
Fed’s Wait-and-See on Rate Cuts Further Supported by Extra-Hot “Core Services” PCE Inflation & Hot “Core” PCE Inflation by Wolf Richter • Apr 26, 2024 • 199 Comments Housing inflation refuses to cool for eighth month, and five of the remaining seven core services accelerated further. This is not good.
Our Drunken Sailors Splurge on Services, Fixed Investment Surges. But Much-Worse Imports Drag Bigly on GDP. And there’s a Blip in Government Spending by Wolf Richter • Apr 25, 2024 • 113 Comments Re-accelerating inflation in Q1 hit “real” GDP growth. “Current-dollar” GDP growth only a hair slower than in Q4.
Biggest Landlords Pile into “Build-to-Rent” Single-Family Houses, but Sell Older Houses into this Overpriced Market by Wolf Richter • Apr 24, 2024 • 100 Comments American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes sold over 3,000 older single-family houses in 2023.