The Federal Reserve Bank

The percentage of homes purchased by real estate investors fell 49 percent  compared with what they bought a year before, and overall home purchases fell 41 percent, according to real estate brokerage Redfin, which analyzed date from 40 major metros. Something that may have led investors to retreat from the housing market likely are rising interest rates. Even though investors buy...

The Chinese regime is pushing a global campaign to get other nations to join its “de-dollarization” movement, explains Epoch Times contributor Alex Newman in this interview with host Joshua Philipp on Crossroads. Just as important as the CCP’s role, if not more important, however, are the policies being pursued by the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve that are rapidly...

Mortgage applications have fallen for the fourth straight week amid elevated mortgage rates, according to a recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The volume of mortgage loan applications fell by 1.4 percent for the week ended June 2, on a seasonally adjusted basis, said an MBA press release on June 7. On an unadjusted basis, the decline was...

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed finish Wednesday, as drops for Microsoft and other big-name tech stocks overshadowed gains across much of the rest of Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 16.33, or 0.4 percent, to 4,267.52 even though the majority of stocks within the index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 91.74, or 0.3 percent,...

Ron Paul The political and financial class breathed a sigh of relief when Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The bill suspends the debt ceiling for two years, thus avoiding the establishment’s nightmare of a government default on its debt. Rather, it allows the government to continue adding trillions of dollars of debt that will be monetized by...

America’s “soft” debt ceiling is a systemic flaw that causes spending and inflation to exceed the government’s revenue. The change from a soft debt ceiling to a “hard” one actually depends on the international financial market restraints on the demand for U.S. debt. The change in the demand function shifts with relationships among global geopolitics, economies and finance. Global multipolarization...

Despite the national slump in real estate sales, Lawrence Yun, the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), is forecasting that mortgage rates will fall closer to 6.0 percent by the end of 2023 and go below 6.0 percent in 2024. He expects new and existing-home sales to bottom out in 2023 before an upturn in 2024. During...

NEW YORK—Wall Street rose Thursday with hopes that the Federal Reserve may soon take it easier on its hikes to interest rates. The S&P 500 rallied 1 percent after a suite of reports painted a picture of a split U.S. economy. The job market remains solid, but manufacturing is weakening and retailers are seeing shoppers under pressure. Altogether, investors saw...

The U.S. House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation to suspend the nation’s debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, despite vocal opposition on both sides of the aisle. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, a fiscal package put together by President Joe Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and their teams of negotiators, overwhelmingly cleared the lower chamber with a 314-117 vote. More...

Home prices across the United States rose for the second consecutive month in March amid widespread shortages and inventory issues, according to data published on May 29. Home prices increased by 0.4 percent nationwide month over month, data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price index showed. That marked the second month in a row of gains after seven consecutive months of price...

NEW YORK—Wall Street churned to a mixed finish Tuesday as a long list of worries looms, even if the most pressing crisis seems to be calming as Washington moves to avoid a default on its debt. The S&P 500 edged up by 0.07, or less than 0.1 percent, to 4,205.52, hovering close to its highest level since August. The Dow...

Commentary Numbers recently released indicate that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most commonly used indicator of inflationary pressures, fell to a one-year annualized rate of 4.9 percent in the United States. The Biden administration heralded this as a major triumph as Twitter shills sang the praises of the Democrats’ economic stewardship. (In Canada, the government said the CPI fell...

The trend away from the U.S. dollar in global trade and finance is accelerating rapidly as inflation persists, government debt levels explode, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) roams the planet negotiating deals in other currencies. The economic and political implications of the dollar’s possible loss of its prized status as global reserve currency are hard to overstate, according to...

With Memorial Day approaching, Americans will be purchasing ketchup, mustard, and other condiments en masse—and inflation will play a role. A 32-ounce bottle of ketchup went from an average of $4.08 for the week of May 16, 2022, to $5.22 for the week of May 15, 2023, according to data that was compiled by Datasembly, which measures grocery price changes in stores...

Commentary I don’t know when the debt ceiling will be raised, but it will be raised. Every time federal spending bumps up against the debt ceiling, we witness the same drama, a drama so predictable that you could almost call it a ritual: Republicans, citing a need for fiscal restraint, demand some cuts to federal spending; Democrats resist the proposed...

The outlook of Americans towards their retirement plans has worsened over the past year according to a recent Gallup poll, with concerns about rising prices and recession sapping away optimism. The expectations of non-retired Americans for a comfortable retirement are now at their “most pessimistic” level since 2012, falling by 10 percentage points since 2021, said a May 25 survey...

NEW YORK—Wall Street’s building frenzy around artificial intelligence helped yank the stock market higher Thursday, even as worries worsen about political rancor in Washington. The S&P 500 rallied 0.9 percent after chipmaker Nvidia gave a monster forecast for upcoming sales as it benefits from the tech world’s rush into AI. It helped the Nasdaq composite leap 1.7 percent, while the...

Commentary Ben Bernanke, former head of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, has co-authored a paper with Olivier Blanchard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, that seeks to account for inflation rates that have knocked at least 15 cents off the value of the 2020 dollar. Reading the paper for me was a trip back in time when...

YouTube October is the release date for a Martin Scorsese movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, based on a David Grann book of the same name, on the string of murders in Oklahoma a century ago, which left untold numbers of Osage Indians dead. As is so often the case, the murders were a violation of the Sixth Commandment (Thou...

NEW YORK—Wall Street fell again Wednesday as stocks tumbled worldwide on worries about the economy. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7 percent after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Republicans and Democrats remain “far apart” in their efforts to prevent a potentially disastrous default on the U.S. government’s debt. The main U.S. stock index is on track for its worst week in...