Fortune (February 21)
“The housing market correction just took a new turn,” which appears to be “brutal.” KB Home’s Q4 results revealed a buyer cancellation rate that shot to 68%, up from 13% year on year. The Q4 cancellation rate “also surpassed the industry’s peak cancellation rate of 47% during the darkest days of the 2008-era crash.”
Tags: 2008-era crash, 47%, 68%, Brutal, Buyer cancellation rate, Correction, Housing market, KB Home, Peak, Q4 results
Financial Times (October 30)
Empty housing poses an increasing threat to both Japan and China. The former already grapples with surplus units while the latter “may already have enough housing to meet its future needs.” Nomura Research Institute has forecast that in Japan, “even as the number of empty units roughly doubles between 2023 and 2038, construction will add more than 8mn new ones.” Due to the rise of single person households, the total number of households will only peak next year. From that point, “the housing surplus will rise more acutely and the downward pressure on property prices strengthen.” The major demographic issue facing China, “may be how to avoid a Japan-style property crisis.”
Tags: China, Construction, Demographic, Downward pressure, Empty, Households, Housing, Japan, NRI, Peak, Property crisis, Surplus, Threat, Units
Investment Week (August 23)
In early August, the Bank of England predicted “increased gas prices would cause inflation to rise above 13% by the end of the year.” The consensus is worse. “Goldman Sachs and EY forecast UK consumer price inflation would reach 15%, and Bank of America projected it would peak at 14% in January.” Citi bank has gone further and “riled markets” by forecasting “UK CPI to hit 18.6% in January… beating the 1979 peak when CPI hit 17.8% following the OPEC oil shock.” A recession looks all but inevitable.
Tags: Bank of America, BOE, Citi bank, Consensus, CPI, EY, Forecast, Gas prices, Goldman Sachs, Inflation, Markets, Oil shock, OPEC, Peak, Recession, UK
Bloomberg (August 7)
“Sky-high US inflation may finally be approaching a peak as global economic growth sputters and oil and other commodity prices plunge. Now the focus is shifting to how fast and far it will retreat.” The tight job market “is probably the biggest reason why inflation may prove more entrenched than the optimists expect.”
Tags: Commodity prices, Entrenched, Global, Growth, Inflation, Job market, Oil, Optimists, Peak, Plunge, Sky-high, Sputters, U.S.
Investment Week (June 16)
“The industry has labelled the Bank of England a ‘timid cat’ following its interest rate rise of 0.25% in its bid to tackle inflation on Thursday (16 May), with many stating it was simply prolonging the time till they take the necessary action.” Following the 25-basis-point hike, UK interest rates stand at 1.25%, with the BoE expecting inflation “to peak at 11% in October.”
Tags: 0.25%, 1.25%, Action, BOE, Inflation, Interest rate, Necessary, October, Peak, Prolonging, Rise, Timid cat, UK
Wall Street Journal (June 16)
The Federal Reserve Board’s 75-point increase “was supposed to signal shock and awe, and it was the Fed’s first move of that magnitude since 1994.” Though the Fed is “front-loading its rate increases,” it does not realize the need to “go all that high to beat inflation.” The current forecast calls for a fed-funds interest rate of only 3.4% by year end. “That means increases will taper off through the rest of the year, and the Fed predicts a peak of only 3.8% in 2023.”
Tags: 1994, 2023, 3.8%, 75-point, Awe, Fed, Forecast, Front-loading, Inflation, Interest rate, Peak, Rate increases, Shock, Signal, Taper
The Guardian (March 30)
“The pandemic has changed, but the idea that it is over is false.” Last week, the UK had an estimated 4.26 million cases and hospital “admissions with Covid are only 2% below the first Omicron peak two months ago and still rising.” Nor is Covid endemic. Eventually, it probably will be, but endemic “does not necessarily mean mild,” as TB, Malaria and other endemic diseases illustrate. “Trying to ignore a disease that is still so unpredictable feels a bit like turning your back on a hungry tiger in the undergrowth.”
Tags: Admissions, Cases, Covid, Diseases, Endemic, False, Hospital, Hungry tiger, Malaria, Mild, Omicron, Pandemic, Peak, Rising, TB, UK, Unpredictable
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (February 1)
“The highly contagious omicron variant has pushed the daily average of U.S. COVID-19 deaths higher than last fall’s delta wave as the nation nears a chilling milestone of 900,000 coronavirus deaths.” Statewide deaths have also been growing, though “it remains unclear if Georgia will surpass the peak that followed the devastating surge of the earlier delta variant.”
Tags: Chilling, Contagious, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deaths, Delta wave, Devastating, Georgia, Milestone, Omicron, Peak, Surge, Surpass, U.S., Variant
Wall Street Journal (January 13)
“The U.K. appears to have passed the peak of the latest wave of Covid-19 caused by Omicron, a promising sign that the highly transmissible variant’s impact may be brief, if intense, and fueling optimism that the pandemic may be waning.”
Tags: Brief, COVID-19, Impact, Intense, Omicron, Optimism, Pandemic, Peak, Promising, Transmissible, U.K., Variant, Wave
London Times (December 20)
“Although Boris Johnson is unlikely to impose further restrictions before Christmas,” anything is possible thereafter. “A full lockdown is not off the table.” Modelling suggests hospital admissions will soar beyond 3,000, possibly reaching 10,000 per day in England, a number “far higher than January’s peak of 4,000.”
Tags: Christmas, England, Hospital admissions, January, Johnson, Lockdown, Modelling, Peak, Restrictions
