Wolf Street - otal household debt outstanding in Q2 ticked up by $109 billion, or by 0.6%, from Q1 – the smallest percentage increase since Q2 2023, and the second smallest increase since Q1 2021 – to $17.8 trillion, according to the Household Debt and Credit Report from the New York Fed today. Year-over-year, total household debt grew […]

Wolf Street - The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, released today for “May,” are three-month moving averages of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas whose sales were entered into public records in March, April, and May. So that’s the time frame. Over this period, home prices in all 20 metros increased from the prior month, in most […]

Wolf Street - The revisions, the upward revisions, oh-la-la! The Bureau of Economic Analysis released today the PCE price index for June; and as part of it, the “core” PCE price index – the Fed’s primary yardstick for inflation – was revised substantially higher for May, driven by a large upward revision of the “core services” PCE price […]

Wolf Street - The average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate during the latest reporting week dropped to 6.87%, the lowest since mid-March, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today. Not so ironically, two things happened, as the MBA also reported today: Applications for mortgages to purchase a home fell to the lowest point since early June, as potential […]

Wolf Street - The Bank of Canada cut its rates at the beginning of June, and not much happened in the Canadian housing market. Home sales rose by 3.7% in June from the beaten-down levels in May, seasonally adjusted. But year-over-year, home sales were down 9.4%, a sharper year-over-year decline than in May (-5.9%). New listings rose by […]

Wolf Street - Prices of used cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans that were sold at auctions across the US fell by 0.6% in June from May, and by 8.9% year-over-year, to $17,934, seasonally adjusted, the lowest since March 2021, having given up 60%, or $5,640, of the mindboggling $9,443-spike between January 2020 and May 2022 (red in […]

Wolf Street - otal assets on the Fed’s balance sheet dropped by $34 billion in June, to $7.22 trillion, the lowest since November 2020, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet today. Since the end of QE in April 2022, the Fed has shed $1.74 trillion. At its FOMC meeting in May, the Fed outlined how it will slow […]

Wolf Street - When the Bank of Canada cut its policy rates by 25 basis points earlier in June, it based that cut on the inflation rates that had cooled sharply, and it based further cuts on these trends continuing. But leery of just the sort of reversal inflation dished up today, BOC governor Tiff Macklem said at […]

Wolf Street - Still dogged by mortgage rates milling around in the 7% neighborhood, and by people’s urge to wait for lower mortgage rates before buying, sales of existing homes of all types – single-family houses, townhomes, condos, and coops – fell further in May from April on a seasonally adjusted basis, to an annual rate of 4.11 […]

Wolf Street - Home prices in Canada edged down 0.2% in May from April, the ninth month in a row of declines, seasonally adjusted, according to the Composite MLS Home Price Index from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. Condo prices fell faster than single-family prices. From the peak in February 2022, the index is now down […]

Wolf Street - Used vehicle prices are in a historic downward spiral, unwinding the hugest-ever price spike that had built up during the pandemic. Despite the plunge, wholesale prices of vehicles sold at auction in May were still 35% above where they’d been in January 2020, according to Manheim, the largest auto auction house in the US. With […]

Wolf Street - “With continued evidence that underlying inflation is easing,” the Bank of Canada said today that “monetary policy no longer needs to be as restrictive,” and it cut policy interest rates by 25 basis points, as widely expected. But QT will continue, the statement said. The BOC has already shed 64% of the securities it had […]

Wolf Street - The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released today and dubbed “March,” is a three-month moving average of home prices whose sales were entered into public records in January, February, and March. So that’s the time-frame we’re looking at here. It reflects Rate-Cut Mania that commenced in November and peaked February 13, when the first of three […]

Wolf Street - Sales of existing homes of all types were still dogged by the 7% mortgage rates, but a shift has been taking place that took amplitude in April: Many more higher-end homes came on the market and sold, while fewer mid-range homes sold. This shift impacted all kinds of metrics, from inventory for sale to the […]

Wolf Street - Home prices in Canada were unchanged for the second month in a row in April from March, after a series of declines, seasonally adjusted, according to the Composite MLS Home Price Index from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) on Wednesday, as prices of single-family houses inched up 0.1% for the month, while condo prices […]

Wolf Street - Total household debt outstanding ticked up by $184 billion, or by 1.1%, in Q1 from Q4 to $17.7 trillion, on declines in credit card balances, other revolving balances, and student loan balances, according to the Household Debt and Credit Report from the New York Fed today: Mortgage debt: +1.6%; to $12.4 trillion HELOC balances: +4.4%; […]

Wolf Street - Seasonally adjusted, prices of used vehicles that were sold at auctions across the US fell 2.3% in April from March, to $18,151, the lowest since April 2021, and down by $5,423 (-23%) from the peak in January 2022, according to today’s Used Vehicle Value Index by Manheim, the largest auto auction house in the US. […]

Wolf Street - The brief and now bygone era of Rate-Cut Mania. Today’s S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, dubbed “February,” is a three-month moving average of home prices whose sales were entered into public records in December, January, and February. Today’s data therefore reflects Rate-Cut Mania that lasted from the beginning of November until February 13, when the […]

Wolf Street - Rental car operator Hertz Global Holdings has had a nasty time in the stock market since it emerged from bankruptcy (filed Chapter 11 in May 2020, emerged on June 30, 2021). The new stock closed on the first day of trading at $26.99, then wobbled lower until the meme-stock crowd briefly fancied it again, and […]

Wolf Street - The core PCE price index, which excludes the volatile components of food and energy and is the inflation index the Fed is focused on, jumped by 3.9% annualized in March from February, nearly double the Fed’s target of 2%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis today (blue in the chart). The three-month annualized core […]

Wolf Street - Mortgage rates continue to trudge higher from the abandoned Rate-Cut-Mania low. The average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 7.13% in the latest week, the highest since early December, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today, as the 10-year Treasury yield has re-surged amid the Fed’s vigorous backpedaling on its December rate-cut visions after […]

Wolf Street - Condo prices in Canada fell 0.7% in March from February, seasonally adjusted, while house prices edged up 0.3%, and so the Composite MLS Home Price Index edged down 0.1%, according to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. The index has now fallen 14.1% from two years ago, from the peak in March […]

Wolf Street - The Bank of Canada, in its quantitative tightening program, does not cap the roll-off. Whenever Government of Canada bonds in its portfolio mature, the BoC gets paid for them at face value and doesn’t replace them. That’s the roll-off. There are months when nothing in the BoC’s portfolio matures, and there are months when a […]

Wolf Street - Total assets on the Fed’s balance sheet fell by $99 billion in March, to $7.44 trillion, the lowest since February 2021, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet today. Since the end of QE in April 2022, the Fed has shed $1.53 trillion. There have been discussions at the Fed about how and when to […]

Wolf Street - Canada’s population jumped by 1.27 million people in 2023, to 40.77 million by January 1, an increase of 3.2% from a year ago, the highest year-over-year growth rate since 1957 (3.3%), Statistics Canada said today in its report on the exploding growth of Canada’s population, driven by a huge wave of immigrants; 98% of the […]