Washington Post (December 2)
“The debate now is when the Fed will start cutting interest rates. Stocks ,, come by May. That would certainly help the housing market, which has frozen with mortgage rates at the highest levels in about two decades.”
Tags: Betting, Cutting, Debate, Fed, Frozen, Highest, Housing market, Interest, Investors, Mortgage rates, Rallying, Rates, Stocks
Wall Street Journal (November 13)
“Foreclosures are surging in an opaque and risky corner of commercial real-estate finance, offering one of the starkest signs yet that turmoil in the property market is worsening.” Through just October, the Journal found notices for “mezzanine loans and other high-risk loans” had already more than doubled the number for all of 2022 and likely reached “the highest total ever for a single year, as higher interest rates and rising vacancies punish the property sector.”
Tags: Commercial, Finance, Foreclosures, Highest, Interest rates, Mezzanine loans, Property market, Real estate, Risky, Surging, Turmoil, Worsening
Bloomberg (September 1)
“That jump in the unemployment rate was not a reflection of companies firing workers in anticipation of a slowdown.” A “very large 700,000 increase” in job seekers “caused the labor force participation rate to jump to 62.8%, the highest since before the pandemic.”
Tags: 62.8%, Companies, Firing, Highest, Job seekers, Jump, Labor force, Pandemic, Participation rate, Slowdown, Unemployment rate, Workers
Wall Street Journal (March 25)
The aggregate M-Score index, which measures manipulation across corporate America “shows that the collective probability of fraud across major companies is the highest in over 40 years,” possibly foreshadowing economic downturn. “The theory is that their index might be catching distress in the stages when some companies are taking steps to try to cover it up…. The stock market might behave like the corporate sector is still humming along when in reality, its earnings are increasingly buoyed by tricks.”
Tags: Aggregate, Distress, Earnings, Economic downturn, Fraud, Highest, Index, M-Score, Major companies, Manipulation, Stock market
Wall Street Journal (November 1)
The European Union’s statistics agency released figures that surprised most economists. “Consumer prices were 10.7% higher in October than a year earlier.” This marks “the fastest rate of increase since records began in 1997, two years before the euro was launched,” while at the national level “Germany’s measure of inflation was the highest since December 1951.”
Tags: 10.7%, 1997, Consumer prices, Economists, EU, euro, Fastest, Germany, Highest, Increase, Inflation, October, Records, Statistics agency, Surprised
CNN (September 29)
“Mortgage rates surged for the sixth week in a row, moving closer to 7%. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.70% in the week ending September 29, up from 6.29% the week before…. That’s the highest level since July 2007.” Amid soaring inflation and aggressive moves by the Fed, “mortgage rates have more than doubled since the start of this year.”
Tags: 30-year, 7%, Aggressive, Doubled, Fed, Fixed-rate, Highest, Inflation, Mortgage, Rates, Surged
LA Times (January 17)
“The Los Angeles County saw an average of 40 coronavirus deaths a day over the last week, the highest such rate in nearly 10 months, a sign that the prolific Omicron variant may be deadlier than many initially believed.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Deadlier, Deaths, Highest, Los Angeles, Omicron, Prolific, Variant
Star-Ledger (December 17)
“New Jersey on Thursday reported another 16 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 6,271 confirmed cases—the state’s highest one-day total for confirmed positive tests since Jan.13, the peak day from last winter’s pandemic surge, before vaccines were widely available.”
Tags: Cases, Confirmed, COVID-19, Deaths, Highest, New Jersey, Pandemic, Peak, Positive tests, Surge, Vaccines
The Economist (November 27)
The EU is currently “recording nearly a quarter of a million cases a day,” its highest levels ever, and the WHO has warned “that 700,000 more Europeans could die by March.” Eventually, “covid-19 will probably settle down as a seasonal disease, a lethal threat to the elderly and the poor in health, but to everyone else mostly a nuisance. However, as Europe is discovering, getting there will be perilous.”
Tags: Cases, COVID-19, Die, Elderly, EU, Europe, Health, Highest, Lethal threat, March, Nuisance, Poor, Seasonal disease, WHO
LA Times (October 14)
President Biden is doing what he can to get the supply chain rolling as he pressures ports to open 24/7. “One of the biggest economic threats is that supply chain bottlenecks and various shortages are sparking higher inflation.” The consumer price index showed year-0n-year inflation jumped 5.4%, “the highest rate in more than a decade.”
Tags: 24/7, Biden, Bottlenecks, CPI, Economic threats, Highest, Inflation, Ports, Shortages, Supply chain