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Jun 20, 2024
The Moody's Delinquency Tracker total delinquency rate increased 22 basis points to 5.59% in May. The office and hotel sectors contributed the most to this month's increase. All property type delinquency rates increased this month except multifamily. Meanwhile, the regional scores were mixed.
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May 22, 2024
Minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's May meeting show policymakers were unnerved by the lack of progress fighting inflation in the first quarter. A number of participants were unsure about how restrictive Fed policy actually is and how long it will need to stay there. Among the downside risks discussed by policymakers were unrealized losses on assets in the banking sector and geopolitical events that could push up commodity prices. The slowing in the pace of the Fed's balance sheet drawdown, or quantitative tightening, had near unanimous support.
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May 14, 2024
Wholesale trade values fell 1.1% in March following a 2.3% rise in February.
Core sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and oilseed and grain, also fell 1.1%. In volume terms, real wholesale trade declined 1.2%. Sales declined in three of seven categories, the largest of which was in motor vehicles, parts and accessories. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale sales have declined 0.4%.
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May 01, 2024
Mortgage activity in the U.S. has contracted for consecutive weeks. In the week ended April 26, the mortgage activity composite index slid 2.3% following a 2.7% fall the week before. Refinancing fell 3.3% while purchase applications dropped 1.7%. Inflation's stubbornness in the first quarter of 2024 has led investors to conclude that the Federal Reserve's first rate cut might not be coming this year. This has buoyed interest rates such as the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. In the week ended April 26, the 30-year fixed rate rose 5 basis points to 7.29%, its highest since November.
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Apr 30, 2024
World recession risks rose slightly to 31.8% with data through February. The three-month moving average fell to 32.5%. Recession risks will continue to improve in the coming months.
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Apr 25, 2024
Consumer finances remain strong, but they are being undermined by high inflation, high interest rates, and exhausted excess saving for some. Hence, bankruptcy filings are showing a deterioration in household finances. A first-quarter increase in filings is seasonally normal as holiday spending takes its toll, and that pattern continued. U.S. courts reported that nonbusiness filings came in 12.9% above their year-ago level after rising 19% the prior quarter. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, filings rose 6.9%. Business filings rose in the quarter, up 1.4% from the fourth quarter. They were up 34.6% from a year earlier as high interest rates took a toll. This compares with a 53.2% increase on a year-ago basis in the prior quarter.
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Apr 17, 2024
Nominal usual weekly earnings rose by 3.5% on a year-ago basis in the first quarter of 2024 while CPI rose by 3.2% from a year earlier in the same period. The first quarter's 3.5% increase is a deceleration from the closing quarter of 2023 which saw a 5.5% gain in median weekly earnings. Part-time workers saw a larger increase as wages rose 4.8% from a year-earlier.
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Apr 15, 2024
Global businesses are feeling better at the start of this year. While it is premature to conclude that business sentiment is definitively on the mend, this improvement is encouraging. Businesses are meaningfully more upbeat in their responses to the broad questions concerning present business conditions and prospects for business through this summer. The most significant blemish in the survey is soft sales, with one-third of respondents saying they are weakening.
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Mar 29, 2024
Real consumer spending growth remains inconsistent month to month but with a healthy trend. Real spending bounced back from its January decline in February, rising 0.4%, after dropping 0.2%, in January (revised from down 0.1%) and rising 0.5% in December (0.6% before revision). Spending growth will be modest, given the weights of modest real income growth, high interest rates, and still-high inflation. Vehicle spending contributed to the gain while service spending was modestly undermined by a weather-driven drop in utility spending. Prices rose 0.3% in aggregate and nominal spending rose 0.8% after rounding. Given modest income growth, the saving rate fell to 3.6% compared with 4.1% in January.
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