Vibecession? Red Lobster Ch. 11, MJ > Alcohol? Loans Perform
Over half of Americans now believe our economy is in recession even though GDP has continued to increase since the 2020 recession. Additionally, nearly 50% of Americans believe unemployment is at a 50-year high when the unemployment rate is near historic lows. Don’t call it a ‘vibecession’, especially when 70% of Americans believe inflation is […]
Buy-Now Pay-Later Regulations, Home Sales, Global Manufacturing Strength
Buy-Now Pay-Later – in 2 months the CFPB will treat buy-now pay-later companies as credit card providers under the Truth and Lending Act. While this will not force BNPL companies to report to credit bureaus, the 1 in 5 households that utilize these plans will have methods of disputing charges particularly for items that never […]
Consumer Debt, Inflation Update, Builder Confidence Weakens
Mortgage Rates – improved this week as the price of Mortgaged Backed Securities (MBS) responded favorably to correct BLS job numbers and a weaker than expected CPI report. Raters are up approximately 0.25% from this time last year. New Construction – the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index, which measures builder confidence, […]
Jobs Report, Bond Market, Inflation Indices
Jobs – the BLS Jobs Report showed 175K jobs created in April, well below expectations of 243K, and the previous 2 months were also revised lower by 22,000. We saw the most gains in the Healthcare sector of 56,000 jobs. Average Hourly earnings rose 0.2% and are up 3.9% year over year (previous was 4.1%). […]
Deep Fakes, Loan Perform, Q1 GDP
AI Scams – cyber executive fraud has been around for a while. Typically, an employee is tricked into wiring large sums of money into a scammer’s bank account. Often these requests are for ‘special projects’ and involve urgency. The average value of these scams was $100,000 but the stakes are getting higher and sneakier. At a […]
Mortgage Bonds Struggle, Rents Strong, Supply Creeps Up
Mortgage Rates ticked up over the previous week as the price of Mortgaged Backed Securities continues to decline. Rates are up approximately 0.75% from this time last year. Rents – CoreLogic released their Rental Report for February which showed that rent prices are up 3.4% year over year, a big increase from 2.6% in the […]
Foot Long Inflation & Fed Update
Foot Long Inflation – long gone are the days of the $5 foot long, or even consistent pricing throughout their restaurants. Now Subway is focusing on advertising length of price, including foot-long cookies and churros. Wendy’s is investing $30M into AI powered digital menus that track consumer habits and will increase profit, whether it is […]
CC Antitrust, Home Values Improve, Strong Jobs Report
After nearly 2 Decades Visa and Mastercard announced $30 Billion antitrust settlement over fees charged to businesses every time a credit or debit card is swiped. This settlement caps fees until 2030 and then companies will need to re-negotiate. Swipe fees typically include small, fixed fees plus a percentage of total sales, which average 1.5% […]
March Madness, Loans Perform, Homes Appreciate
Should Schools be Paying their College Athletes? Dartmouth, who finished last in the Ivy League this season, became the first team in college athletics to unionize. Are college athletes students playing sports or are they employees of their schools? A 2021 White house memo said if students are performing a service in exchange for compensation, […]
IRS Updates, Fed Dot Plot, Home Sales Strong
Taxes – have you filed yet? April 15th is less than a month out! The IRS claims this season is going smoothly after investing billions of dollars to improve customer service and target wealthy tax cheats. This season a call back function was added to the 1-800 number. As of March 15th, the IRS has […]