July 18, 2023 For two years from the inception of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve kept short-term interest rates close to zero. Then as the pandemic waned and the economy bounced back, the Fed went on an inflation fighting campaign and they raised rates at ten straight meetings over a 15-month period. At the last […]
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July 11, 2023 Last month, the Federal Reserve Board took a breather from raising rates. They went into “wait and see mode” in order to determine what they would do next. Well, one data point they were waiting for arrived last Friday – the jobs report. Up until now the jobs machine has not taken […]
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June 27, 2023 Just about every market analyst has been predicting a recession sometime in 2023. Well, here we are ending the first half of the year and we have seen very few signs of a recession. To the contrary, as of last month the economy had added almost 1.5 million jobs in the first […]
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June 13, 2023 When a kitten or puppy waves their paws at us, it is considered major cuteness in action. When the Federal Reserve Board is faced with a decision regarding the “pausing” of interest rate hikes, there is no cuteness involved – just a bunch of hemming and hawing (not pawing). So, the Fed […]
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June 13, 2023 Fifteen months ago, the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee met and raised short-term interest rates for the first time in almost four years. Since then, there has been an automatic rise in short-term rates each time they have met – ten times in all. In a previous commentary we spoke about […]
Read More May 30, 2023 Why did we put these three words together? First, we just celebrated Memorial Day. Though summer does not start officially for a few weeks, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of the summer season. It is the time that school starts to let out and the masses plan their vacations. In the […]
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May 23, 2023 For a year we have had to deal with rising interest rates and lower home affordability. Much of this was expected after record-low interest rates helped fuel a real estate purchasing frenzy which resulted in prices increasing by double digits for the past few years. Fast forward to today, and home prices […]
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May 23, 2023 For a year we have had to deal with rising interest rates and lower home affordability. Much of this was expected after record-low interest rates helped fuel a real estate purchasing frenzy which resulted in prices increasing by double digits for the past few years. Fast forward to today, and home prices […]
Read More May 16, 2023 Fannie Mae’s economists say a recession is coming. So does the Mortgage Bankers Association. As a matter of fact, 58% of economists are predicting a recession coming in the near future. Some even are predicting that the recession has started in the second quarter, but most are now expecting the start to […]
Read More May 9, 2023 It has been a crazy first quarter. It is amazing that the economy produced approximately one million jobs during the first quarter of the year. Everyone knew that the pace of job creation was not likely to continue, especially since we have already replaced the number of jobs lost during the pandemic-induced […]
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