ECONOMICS

For much of the last year, recession fears have been building against a sharp rise in interest rates and market uncertainty.

Only recently has there been a shift in sentiment. Given the resilience of the U.S. economy, a growing amount of investors are seeing an increasing likelihood of a soft landing – where the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation without triggering a recession. However, many still remain cautious.

In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist's (more…)

Two weeks ago, we laid out the various reasons why – according to JPMorgan and Goldman – sentiment on US consumer stocks had cratered, and would continue to worsen.

Indeed, after a brief short squeeze at the end of September, the XRT retail ETF is at the lowest level since June after peaking on the "last Fed hike" in late July, and as we enter into 4Q, there is a lot on the line in the consumer space.

As Goldman's Prime Brokerage recently noted, shorting in the (more…)

As we previewed yesterday, the BankRate average 30Y US mortgage this morning has spiked 8 basis points to the highest level in 23 years – one not seen August 25, 2000 – a mindblowing 7.88%, which is insane when one considers that three years ago the same mortgage was less than 3%.

One thing is certain: nobody, and we mean nobody, who can't afford 100% cash down, can afford to purchase a home today.

For context, the chasm between the effective rate of around 3.6% (more…)