Category Archives: Weekly Financial News

Existing-Home Sales Still in Decline

The Mortgage Corner I said last week that higher new home sales and rising homebuilders’ optimism foretell a strong summer sales season if builders and existing-home inventories don’t run out of housing stock. The problem is not enough existing homes … Continue reading

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Retail Sales Still Healthy

Financial FAQs Calculated Risk/Census Bureau Why do consumers keep spending with so much news warning of an impending recession? Well, because we’re not even close to a recession yet. NYTimes columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been puzzling over … Continue reading

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Wholesale Inflation is Tamed

Financial FAQs BLS.gov April’s Producer Price Index for final demand confirmed the wholesale cost of goods and services has already returned to a 2 percent range, which should enable Fed officials to say the battle against COVID-induced inflation is almost … Continue reading

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Inflation is Now Tamed?

Popular Economics Weekly FREDcpi Has Chairman Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve been suffering from a giant inferiority complex, from the fear that its actions are not being taken seriously enough and so it tends to overreact to crises? That seems to … Continue reading

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Where’s the Recession?

Popular Economics Weekly MarketWatch Surprise, surprise. Americans remain fully employed, in spite of the Fed’s efforts to slow economic growth. The ‘official’ unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent in April. The last time it was this low was in 1968. … Continue reading

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More Housing Sorely Needed

The Mortgage Corner I said last week that higher new home sales and rising homebuilders’ optimism foretells a strong summer sales season if builders and existing-home inventories don’t run out of housing stock. The construction industry is responding. Spending in … Continue reading

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More Housing Needed

The Mortgage Corner Higher new home sales and rising homebuilders’ optimism foretells a strong summer sales season if builders and existing-home inventories don’t run out of housing stock. More new homes could also soften what is being termed a rolling recession with … Continue reading

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US Economy Already In Recession

Popular Economics Weekly BEA.gov First quarter 2023 economic growth was not good, after all the conjecture over where US growth is headed. U.S. Gross Domestic Product grew at just a 1.1 percent annual rate in the first three months of … Continue reading

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New Home Sales Increasing

The Mortgage Corner Census.gov Sales of new single‐family houses in March 2023 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 683,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. … Continue reading

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Softer Retail Sales Mean What?

Financial FAQs FREDretailsales Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a recent Fareed Zakariah interview on CNN that she thought an economic soft landing was possible, despite warnings that the recent bank failures could cause banks to tighten in their lending … Continue reading

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