Finance
by Calculated Risk on 3/21/2023 10:49:00 AM Today, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter: NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 4.58 million SAAR in February; Median Prices Declined YoYExcerpt: On prices, the NAR reported: The median existing-home price for all housing types…
by Calculated Risk on 3/21/2023 10:11:00 AM From the NAR: Existing-Home Sales Surged 14.5% in February, Ending 12-Month Streak of DeclinesExisting-home sales reversed a 12-month slide in February, registering the largest monthly percentage increase since July 2020, according to the National…
Yves here. While the author makes an interesting point about rejection of community institutions and collective obligations as steps on the path to secession, I have to differ a tad on the implicit claim of national identity. I spent six months…
By Michael Every of RabobankShulman, Nosov, Tyulakov, Watford, Melnikov, Avayev, Protosenya, Krukovsky, Subbotin, Voronov, Rapoport, Maganov, Pechorin, Sungorkin, Gerashchenko, Pchelnikov, Petrunin, Mushegian, Taran, Makei, Kochenov, Zelenov, Bidenov, Buzakov, Antov, Maslov, Abdulaev, Pawochka, Makarov, Yankina, Rovneiko. The list of prominent Russians who…
Watch Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will address bank leaders from across the country at the American Bankers Association's annual Washington Summit (due to start at 1000ET): Read Yellen's prepared remarks below: (emphasis ours)Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Rob, for your leadership of…
The price of lithium has experienced a significant decline over recent months, resulting from a deceleration in electric vehicle sales and an increasing supply of the key ingredient used in battery packs. Since November, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in…
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Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,The 25 basis points rate hike expected from the Fed this week could be the last for some time, as stresses in the financial sector cause bank credit to contract.The crisis-lite in the banking sector,…
It's only appropriate that the day after the weekly dose of doom and gloom from Marko Kolanovic and Mike Wilson, that stocks soar to the highest level in almost two weeks. S&P futures spiked above 4,000 on Tuesday as fears about…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Cliff Asness, AQR, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts…
Here’s an interesting idea it wouldn’t have occured to me to ask. What is the length of time described in the average 250 words of narration and how has this changed over time? Most famously James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is a long…
Via SchiffGold.com,Peter Schiff appeared on the Capitol Report on NTD News to talk about the bank bailouts and the possible ramifications. He said that no matter what President Joe Biden and others tell you, Americans are going to pay for this.The interview started with a clip of Treasury Secretary…
18 Inappropriate Logos Buzzfeed (Chuck L) Fan poops in aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway show Page Six (BC) ‘Picasso the Foreigner’ Review: An Outsider in Paris Wall Street Journal. Anthony L: “Worth it for the picture.” ‘That scares…
The Federal Reserve has managed to aggressively raise interest rates and tighten financial conditions so much that it sparked a regional banking crisis and unleashed contagion in European banks. Even before the banking meltdown, financial conditions were tight, pressuring subprime consumers…
“We believe that Mexico has every right to ask for what it wants,” says Lynn Clarkson, chief executive of Illinois-based Clarkson Grain company. “As a supplier, the United States should give its customers what they want.” What Mexico, one of the…
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,A stagnating zombie economy never recovers.Four decades of rising markets punctuated by crisis-induced crashes seems to have fostered an unspoken belief that no one should ever get hurt in markets or the economy. Everything "should"…
The bank panic has momentarily gone quiet as Mr. Market waits to see what the Fed will do in its March 21-22 meetings. The Dow was up 383 points, which by the standard of crisis market volatility, is pretty mild. That…
The purpose of a minimum wage is to establish a baseline income level for workers in a given jurisdiction. Ideally it’s enough to cover basic needs like food and housing, but this isn’t always a guarantee.To see how the minimum wage…
By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com,Dozens of oil and gas platforms in the UK North Sea could come to a standstill in the coming weeks after 1,400 offshore workers at five contractor companies have voted to initiate strikes to demand better pay…
Yves here. History and path dependency play a big role in antipathy to urban life. Aide from port cities being where immigrants landed (i.e, creating poor and decidedly alien neighborhoods), poor sanitation has a lot to do with hostility to cities.…
It's a surprise that Reuters has published an article revealing that the electric vehicle revolution might not be as environmentally friendly as automakers claim. Furthermore, a scratched or slightly damaged battery pack could lead insurance companies to scrap the entire car."We're buying electric…
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has blasted western countries for promoting LGBT issues in Africa, accusing them of “wasting the time of humanity.”The president of the East African country made the remarks during a parliamentary…
Finland leads the ranking of the world's happiest countries for the sixth year in a row, according to the 2023 World Happiness Report released on Monday.As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, while its score (7.80) is significantly ahead of all other countries, a sizeable…
Via The Cradle,Saudi Arabia plans to reopen its consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, over a decade after it was closed at the onset of the US-led war on Syria in 2011, Middle East Monitor reported.The kingdom plans to reopen the consulate in…
We provide experimental evidence that core intertemporal choice anomalies — including extreme short-run impatience, structural estimates of present bias, hyperbolicity and transitivity violations — are driven by complexity rather than time or risk preferences. First, all anomalies also arise in structurally…
Overall, Portland bicycle traffic in 2022 dropped more than a third compared to 2019, to levels not seen since approximately 2005-2006 (Table 1). This is based on a comparison of people counted at the 184 locations that were counted in both 2022 and 2019.…
Authored by Chris Hedges via Consortium News/ScheerPost.com,Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. It was a conscious choice. I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I…
North Korean state media has been touting new claims of mass enlistments amid "an atmosphere of war" and urgent defense preparedness in response to ongoing joint US-South Korea drills, which are the largest in five years.The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) initially…
Authored by Thomas McArdle via The Epoch Times,As the old saw goes, a banker is someone who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and then wants it back as soon as the first drops of rain fall.Hostility toward…
Move over Tesla: both Ford and GM are also trying to take a page out of the 'price cut' playbook that the EV manufacturer has been (successfully) running in China over the last couple months. The move is coming after lifting pandemic…
Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),Ordinary Americans can expect their wealth to get repeatedly chipped away as the monetary system degrades and requires progressively more intervention by authorities to perpetuate itself, according to an influential author and…
Surprisingly, out of the 10 most expensive states to retire in the United States, California is conspicuously absent from the list. That is according to a new WalletHub piece that dove into the most affordable places for U.S. citizens to settle down…
It seems like it was a lifetime ago when, frazzled with the market's rangebound trade, Wall Street's biggest bears were coming up with fictitious narratives seeing bogeymen anywhere and everywhere, if it meant convincing their clients to sell. A distant one…
Consider the following graph of unrealized losses on securities held by reporting banks (from Rupkey/Financial Markets This Week): Source: Rupkey, “Financial Markets This Week,” March 20, 2023. This made me wonder what would make these unrealized losses go to zero? Obviously…
Authored by Ovidiu Tanjala via The Mises Institute,Ludwig von Mises wrote Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, a small book published in 1922, which demonstrated that economic calculation in a socialist commonwealth is impossible. Of course, Mises assumed that the purpose of an economy,…
After repeated laments by the likes of Bill Ackman, who most recently said that "I continue to believe that the best course of action is a temporary @FDICgov deposit guarantee until an updated insurance regime is introduced" (and who just flip-flopped…
Having earlier issued his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bill that would have reversed a Labor Department rule on ESG investing, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill late on Monday that directs the federal government to declassify as much…
Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),Declining cattle production and drought contributed to a sizable drop in beef supplies last year, the lowest in nearly a decade, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).A view of cattle…
Pretty unique, in terms of size, and the combination of uninsured deposits and held-to-maturity securities. From the Economist:
Saudi-backed LIV Golf "stripped" broadcast workers of healthcare and other benefits by shifting to a non-union production company and circumventing the need to provide employee benefits. The move is an ominous sign the second season of the golf league, stacked with…
Authored by Rita Huang, Danny Tang and Nathan Amery via The Epoch Times,The Hong Kong Consumer Council tested the cyber security of ten home surveillance cameras on the market and found that only one model complied with the European cyber security…
After days of repeat smaller missile tests aimed at sending a message to Washington amid joint US-South Korea military drills, which are the largest in years, North Korea on Monday said it launched a ballistic missile over the weekend as part…
Goldman Sachs raised the probability of recession from 25% to 35% in light of the SVB related turmoil (although their guess is still lower than the consensus). This prompted me to wonder what was the net effect of the turmoil and…
Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),For her efforts to report injuries to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and to educate others in her hospital system on doing the same, Physician Assistant Deborah Conrad said she…
On Monday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again emphasized that the Biden administration remains ready to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes."He also unveiled the latest defense aid package - at $350 million including more missiles and air…
Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),Even on a good day, Linda Garinger of Ramona, California, thinks about dying.Linda Garinger (L), who has end-stage kidney disease, and her daughter Emily Lewis read the letter from a hospital denying…
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,Fresh data from Customs and Border Protection has revealed that sixteen people matched to the FBI’s terrorist watchlist were apprehended by Border Patrol agents in February alone.As reported by Fox News, the total number of individuals…
Miami Beach has declared a state of emergency and implemented a curfew for Sunday night until Monday morning due to the violent shootings and chaos on the streets as spring break kicks off. NBC 6 South Florida reported a deadly shooting on…
by Calculated Risk on 3/20/2023 05:10:00 PM From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 0.60% in February The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) monthly Loan Monitoring Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased…
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,Russia overtook China to become the top supplier of oil to China in January and February, with imports of Russian crude hitting to 1.94 million bpd.Chinese imports of Russian oil jumped by 23.8% year-over-year as the…