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No Matter The Acronym, Animal Spirits Have Changed Direction

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Denver-area realtors are seeing something that hasn’t happened in nearly a decade: the market is starting to cool off. Sunny Banka with the Colorado Association of Realtors already seen this materialize with a ranch she listed for a client in Aurora. Weeks ago, Banka said she would expect more than 30 showings for the $600,000 home with five to six offers. Now, they only had a couple of showings and actually lowered the listing price to drive up more interest.”

“Part of the slowing demand is the real cost of monthly payments going up with rates, which could mean roughly $150 more per month in payments. ‘The reality of it is to qualify for that extra payment, you are going to need three to four times that in discretionary income available,’ Banka said.”

“‘If a home is on the market for more than a week, people start to wonder why or assume something is wrong with it,’ said Redfin Boston real estate agent James Gulden. ‘Every offer I’ve written recently has faced multiple offers, but some people have finally had enough of all the competition and are pulling out. They’re becoming less willing to make a risky offer in a high-stress bidding war situation.'”

“‘We saw a clear shift in the housing market as rates rose to 5% at the end of March,’ Devyn Bachman, vice president of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, told the magazine. ‘We are hearing about qualification issues, rising cancellations, and increased buyer hesitancy, particularly at entry-level price points and in remote locations.'”

“‘If you find yourself saying out loud, ‘I think I can stretch my budget to buy this home,’ don’t do it,’ Dvorkin told ConsumerAffairs. Dvorkin says giving up a right to an inspection was always a bad idea, just like buying a used car without test driving it. ‘Would you trust the seller who says, ‘Don’t worry, I only drive it to church on Sundays, give me your money?’ he asked. ‘Homes are more expensive than cars, so never waive an inspection. Shortcuts might get you into a home or car quicker, but then you’re stuck paying for anything that goes wrong. And trust me, cars and homes always break.'”

“The tragedy of many recently built New York skyscrapers in a city where millions struggle to find affordable housing is that so many apartments aren’t occupied, their owners — many in China — buying them as speculative investments. Studies have suggested there’s a glut in the market for these homes, with many remaining unsold for long periods of time. They don’t have the greatest customer satisfaction record. It’s long been accepted that super-tall, super-skinny skyscrapers will move significantly in a brisk wind (experiencing this for the first time can be unnerving and even nausea-inducing, although you tend to get used to it).”

“The ‘chic’ and contemporary one-bedroom unit #405 in the Rowan at 338 Potrero Avenue,  just sold for $775,000 or $1,194 per square foot. The sale was 2.5 percent below its original list price of $795,000 in January and $100,000 below the $875,000 that the seller paid for the ‘used’ condo with a den/office space in April of 2019, representing an 11.4 percent drop in value on an apples-to-apples basis over the past 3 years.  The sale was also 1.8 percent below the $789,000 price at which the unit originally traded hands in March of 2017.”

“Bank of Montreal senior economist Robert Kavcic said: ‘There was a lot of excess demand built on the fact that home prices were expected to keep rising quickly. As that expectation changes, the demand disappears, and does so very quickly,’ he said. ‘We’re definitely seeing a shift,’ said Melissa Charlton, broker with the Charlton Advantage real estate team, who has sold homes in the Milton area for about 17 years. ‘Buyers are a little bit more wary and also they have more options,’ Ms. Charlton said. She added that she noticed a change around mid-March after the first interest rate hike. Homes are taking longer to sell and not drawing as many bids.”

“The Vancouver real estate market is cooling down, and luxury properties are no exception. Buyers are ‘increasingly wary of property prices significantly inflated above current norms and weary of multiple offer scenarios,’ the Sotheby’s report noted. ‘As a result, despite strong consumer demand and limited inventory, luxury properties that have been over-ambitiously priced compared to neighbourhood comparables are less likely to draw multiple bids and are at increasing risk of languishing on the market.'”

“Residents have expressed their frustration with life on the A52 in Radcliffe-on-Trent, with some saying they regret moving to the roadwork-plagued area. One resident, who wished to remain anonymous as she intended to one day sell her house, said she regretted moving in two years ago. ‘We bought it during lockdown,’ she said. ‘So we didn’t realise how bad it could get. I regret buying it, absolutely 100 per cent.'”

“House prices may have already fallen further than some figures suggest, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s latest House Price Index. Nationally, the HPI is down 4.3% from its peak, with the biggest falls occurring in the Auckland and Wellington regions with the HPI down 7.8% from its peak in both regions. Over the three months to the end of March the HPI had declined in eight regions, increased in three and was unchanged in one. That suggests the decline in prices is now widespread and is gathering pace.”

“‘FOMO (fear of missing out) appears to have given way to INPT (I’m not paying that), aka FOOP (fear of over-paying), aka FOBAP (fear of buying at peak). No matter the acronym, it’s all the same: animal spirits have changed direction, and that has the potential to surprise even the best house price models,’ said ANZ senior economist Miles Workman.”

“Beaconsfield, in Sydney’s inner south, had the biggest decline of 7.2 per cent, taking median house prices back to $1.793 million. Almost half of Melbourne’s 648 house and unit markets went backwards in the first three months of 2022. Upmarket Cremorne in the city’s inner south-east having the biggest quarterly drop of 6.4 per cent, taking mid-point house prices back to $1.446 million.”

“CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said the more upmarket suburbs were leading the downturn. ‘It is likely that slightly tighter lending conditions and higher average fixed rates are hitting the very top of housing markets first,’ she said. ‘These same areas are seeing some of the bigger jumps in advertised stock levels too so as we see new demand for housing in these areas decline buyers have more choice, more time for decision-making, and more power at the negotiating table.'”

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This Post Has 122 Comments

  1. This is the Democrat Party.

    Hillary Clinton Pal and Dem Megadonor Ed Buck Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison in Connection with Meth Overdose Deaths of Two Black Men (4/14/2022):

    “Buck, now 67, lured young Black men who were often experiencing homelessness, addiction, and/or poverty to his apartment for sexually charged sessions in which he would inject them with methamphetamine and drug them with sedatives, with and without their consent, federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

    “Buck’s insatiable appetite for injecting people turned lethal twice,” according to the memo, which had recommended a life sentence.”

    This is the Democrat Party.

    “Buck — who has donated more than $500,000 to mostly Democratic causes and served in 2016 as one of California’s Electoral College members — was convicted of two counts of distribution of controlled substances resulting in death.

    Meanwhile, all of Ed Buck’s pals such as Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have been oddly quiet about their friend after he was convicted in connection with meth overdoses of black gay escorts.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/hillary-clinton-pal-dem-megadonor-ed-buck-sentenced-30-years-prison-connection-meth-overdose-deaths-two-black-men/

    “They’re not sending their best”

    1. If there’s anything more vile than Democrat officials, it’s their bankrollers and puppetmasters.

  2. “Every offer I’ve written recently has faced multiple offers, but some people have finally had enough of all the competition and are pulling out.”

    Jerome Powell should have pulled out in 1952.

  3. Flaunting your wealth in a “woke” Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned municipality with a Soros-installed DA is the height of stupidity.

    Woman is Chased Down, Run Over and Robbed in Shocking Daytime Downtown LA Assault

    https://toofab.com/2022/04/13/woman-is-pursued-run-over-and-robbed-in-shocking-daytime-downtown-la-assault/

    A woman fell victim to a car break in, a hit and run and a robbery in Downtown LA on Monday — all in a matter of seconds

    This week, LAPD warned of the rise of a number of so-called ‘follow-home’ gangs operating in the city, and on Tuesday shared security footage of the most brazen one yet.

    1. “In my 34 years in the LAPD, I have never seen this type of criminal behavior in such large groups coordinating to conduct attacks on unsuspecting citizens to take their property and/or vehicles,” said Captain Jonathan Tippet, who leads the task force set up to tackle them.

      Mogadishu, California

  4. “Prince Harry, Meghan make surprise visit to queen at Windsor”

    I thought Prince Cuck had a job, or was it a sinecure?

    1. The Monarchy should be abolished and all of the wealth returned to the people. The people of Jamaica gave Prince William and Princess Kate a rude awakening. In this day and age, seeing these fraudsters walking around in their coat of arms and luxury dress while expecting others to bend thy knee is almost like a bad comedy. Who’s falling for this sh!t anymore?

  5. “The tragedy of many recently built New York skyscrapers in a city where millions struggle to find affordable housing is that so many apartments aren’t occupied, their owners — many in China — buying them as speculative investments.

    This is why local communities need to levy punitive taxes on speculator scum who let their properties sit empty while rents have soared to exorbitant levels (F**k you, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, & Jerome Powell).

    1. It’s very odd that, amidst your otherwise trenchant posts, you keep wanting to punish the little fish for the sins of the big ones.

      1. All housing speculators, great and small, are part of the problem when they’re sitting on vacant properties while making housing unaffordable for locals.

        1. This is the kind of mentality that led to outlawing “hoarding” during WWI. If you had two cans of pork and beans in your cupboard you were a criminal. Depriving others of food, etc. Do you want to go back to that?

          1. I just walked my dog in Salt Lake City. One house down the road has been EMPTY for 5 years now.

            That’s not an extra can of beans on the shelf. It’s outright manipulation.

          2. “One house down the road has been EMPTY for 5 years now.”

            Indeed. We’ve had a number of houses that sat dead for years, frozen solid every winter, baked in the summer, but eventually they were sold to contractors who rebuilt them into livable houses again.

            I recall these layered ownership where percentages were sold and scattered everywhere. I think the county should have seized these places right away for their tax arrears, and sold them all on the courthouse steps. Phuc these banks and the federal reserve’s games!

  6. While Brandon & Democrat-Bolshevik control freaks salivate over the totalitarian control and surveillance measures their CCP ideological mentors are imposing on locked-down urban populations, elements of the populace are finally hitting the breaking point & are starting to push back against the government’s Squid Game-like tyranny.

    Apocalyptic scenes in Shanghai’s rebellion against Zero Covid chaos: Residents attack police after being evicted to create quarantine centres and try to break barricades in hunt for food… while hazmat-clad Communist thugs still can’t stop cases going up

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10721527/Shanghai-rises-against-Communist-Covid-chaos-residents-scuffle-hazmat-suited-police.html

    People in Shanghai are rising up against curbs brought in as part of its zero-Covid policy.

    Residents in China’s biggest city have scuffled with hazmat-suited police who have ordered them to give up their homes to Covid patients, chilling videos on social media show.

    1. I wonder why the ChiComs are playing along with this farce? Is it simply because this has been the official playbook on how to deal with Covid and saying “Omicron is different so we are changing our strategy” is a face losing move?

      They aren’t stopping this, it’s spreading to other cities. Will they lock the whole country down?

      1. John Campbell is stumped by China’s behavior too. Even if they do lock everyone up for a month and get over COVID, all it takes is one visitor from overseas to re-introduce it to a nearly naive population. Are they going to keep visitors out forever? Some of those visitors might want to visit their factories, or contemplate taking the factories elsewhere. There are enough smart people in China to figure this out. There’s got to be some cabal underlying this.

        1. Are they going to keep visitors out forever?
          My friend, who was born in China, has been trying to get back there to be with her kid and grand kid for months. No idea when she will be allowed back in. Her home town is not currently locked down.

    1. As a white male American, your existence is only tolerated as a tax slave to finance the destruction of the civilization that your ancestors created.

      Replacement Theory is not a theory, it is real.

  8. ‘Studies have suggested there’s a glut in the market for these homes, with many remaining unsold for long periods of time. They don’t have the greatest customer satisfaction record’

    I mentioned recently I watched a video on these swaying skinny towers. There aren’t many of them. It’s done to take advantage of a loop hole. If you step back a bit, it’s one of the purest examples of mania. Unbelievably expensive because it costs so much to erect one of these stupid things. Which means only super rich can afford it. It boils down to “these things aren’t practical to live in, it’s basically an very pricey investment.” And as an investment, it’s stinks.

    So there they sit. Safe deposit boxes in the sky that no one needs nor wants.

    1. “It’s not only one of the tallest buildings in the western world; with a height-to-width ratio of 24:1 (that is, 24 times taller than it is wide), it is the world’s skinniest skyscraper. ‘These are not the proportions of a classical column but of a coffee stirrer,’ a critic sniped.”

      I suppose the designer’s goal here is “a view in three directions” from every apt/condo unit.

      1. I get dizzy just thinking about it from the comforts of my chair on the ground floor. You couldn’t get me up to the top of one of those death traps.

        1. dizzy just thinking about it

          Perhaps you would prefer to invest in one of those towers with no elevator. You never have to go up. Just buy and sit in your easy chair while the profits roll in.

    3. Safe deposit boxes in the sky that no one needs nor wants.

      Aside from the owners wasting $s —- But could you consider them a make work project – paying workers, contractors, material suppliers and govt building fees, and now property taxes. It would be like paying workers to dig a hole and fill another one down the road.

      Not saying its right – but its just the rich dofus’es getting hurt.

    1. Soros, Nike, etc. must’ve spanked BLM officials for squandering their funding on high living instead of fomenting Communist revolution.

      1. “It’s only a bad riot if one of my mansions burns down”

        Patrisse Marie Khan-Cullors Brignac
        BLM

  10. Little Red Lyin’ Hood’s attempts to blame Putin for Bidenflation are falling flat with voters, as even Obama’s former economic officials are calling bullshit on Brandon’s insane spending. Come the midterms, the globalists & DNC are going to have to pull out electoral fraud on a scale dwarfing what they orchestrated in 2020 if they want to avert an extinction-level wipeout.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10720587/Steve-Rattner-says-Bidens-1-9trillion-American-Rescue-Plan-extraordinary-policy-mistake.html

    1. Rattner said that the Fed needs to take action to raise interest rates ‘aggressively, quickly and far more forcefully than markets and many economists expect.’

      But they aren’t, and they won’t. It’s by design. Follow the money. The wealthy have never been wealthier, and they want to hang on to those gains. They are in charge.

  11. Aussies who massively overpaid for shacks are facing their financial Waterloo as inflation stoked by central bank money printing kicks in with a vengeance.

    Prices to rise even higher, annual inflation could rise beyond 5 per cent

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/prices-to-rise-even-higher-annual-inflation-could-rise-beyond-5-per-cent/news-story/f31d779a6a183b89fd45f1c1f8e8288d

    Australians have been warned to brace for even more price hikes on basic essentials like food, petrol and electricity as inflation is tipped to break a 15-year record.

    1. [read the article and still dont understand]

      It makes no sense that year-on-year inflation is only 3.4% and estimated to hit 5%. It should already be over 10% with fuel, cost of housing etc. Something is not adding up in the numbers.

      1. Australians spend over 5% of their money on alcohol and less than 4% on electricity and gasoline together. That might explain something.

  12. ** “No matter the acronym, it’s all the same: animal spirits have changed direction, and that has the potential to surprise even the best house price models,’ said ANZ senior economist Miles Workman.”

    so unduring endless charts & graphs on oh-so-many expert presentations are meaningless, as it all boils down to “animal spirits” !?

    makes sense. lord knows i’ve been stroked by the “invisible hand” of the market.

    guess i better cancel all my financial blog subscriptions, cancel wall street journal, barrons, bloomberg terminal, turn off those 6 monitors above my desk (so i look like a financial baller! yo) & just watch where the “animal spirits” zoo monkeys throw their shitzu for investment advice.

    1. animal spirits have changed direction

      Might be a Maori thing. Plus, it fits into the “no one could have seen it coming” narrative.

      1. no one could have seen it

        Maybe economists are the only honest “scientists” left. No one of them has an effing clue.

  13. ‘Twitter is reportedly considering a so-called “poison pill” tactic to thwart Elon Musk’s effort to buy out the social media platform, prompting a critical response from the Tesla chief.’

    ‘Cameron Winklevoss, founder of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, said in a tweet that “Twitter is considering a poison pill to thwart @elonmusk’s offer,” while two anonymous sources told The New York Times that Twitter’s board is mulling the tactic, which is used to block hostile takeovers.’

    ‘The poison pill method gives existing shareholders the right to buy additional shares at a discount, diluting outstanding stock and making a hostile takeover more financially challenging for the acquirer.’

    ‘Winklevoss alleged in his tweet that, by adopting the poison pill tactic, Twitter was demonstrating its commitment to preserving the status quo even if it has a negative impact on existing shareholders.’

    “They would rather self-immolate than give up their censorship programs. This shows you how deeply committed they are to Orwellian control of the narratives and global discourse. Scary,” he wrote.’

    ‘Musk responded to Winklevoss’s tweet, saying that if Twitter’s actions run afoul of shareholders’ interests, they could be exposing themselves to legal action. “If the current Twitter board takes actions contrary to shareholder interests, they would be breaching their fiduciary duty,” Musk wrote. “The liability they would thereby assume would be titanic in scale.”

    ‘Adam Candeub, a law professor at Michigan State University, told The Epoch Times that Twitter’s board could face legal consequences if they turn down an offer that’s financially lucrative to shareholders.’

    “Twitter’s owned by shareholders, and the directors have to act in a way that’s in their best interests, not in the way that allows them to keep control of the corporation,” Candeub told The Epoch Times. “If they turn down a very favorable price, there will be dereliction of their legal duty, and there could be lots of legal consequences.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/twitter-mulls-poison-pill-tactic-to-foil-musk-takeover-bid_4406355.html

      1. eagerly anticipating posts about green-hatted, blue bird wearing sky screaming about twitter takeover.

        with any luck 99% of the useless twatter staff will melt down into quivering clumps of human humus, embracing each other while holding participation trophies aloft in disbelief about the “unfairness” of it all.

        i wish those arrogant wall street jack holes would inundate twatter HQ with Starbucks applications

      2. Gotta love how Orwellian Twitter, and all of social media, have become.

        And I don’t envy the folks at the Babylon Bee, when satire has such a short, if any, shelf life as reality moves forward at warm speed. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out next week that Twitter has hired shrinks to help staff cope with Musk, DeSantis and Putin.

        1. “that Twitter has hired shrinks to help staff cope with”

          The thing is these “companies” have money for $hit like this is beyond comprehensible.

    1. Economy & Policy
      The Economy
      Peak Inflation? Not So Fast.
      By Lisa Beilfuss
      April 15, 2022 2:00 am ET
      The producer price index showed surging prices for meat and fish categories, costs that tend to crop up in the grocery store. Here, a market in Monterey Park, Calif., on a recent day.
      Frederic J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images

      The latest consumer price index brought a collective sigh across Wall Street this week. Inflation has peaked, sang many economists, strategists, and headlines. But the logic behind the optimism is flawed.
      …
      https://www.barrons.com/articles/peak-inflation-2022-transitory-51649966350

    2. Opinion UK inflation
      It is time to relearn the painful inflation lessons of the 1970s
      Calibrating policy to avoid recession will require as much luck as judgment
      Women and children march to protest the rise of food prices in New York City in 1973
      © Keystone/Hulton/Getty Images
      Chris Giles 4 hours ago

      For the past year, politicians and policymakers have watched the rising inflation on both sides of the Atlantic with growing disquiet. Rapidly increasing prices are the unavoidable result of the pandemic, they have said, before adding that at least the situation is nothing like the disastrous inflation of the 1970s.

      They need to have a closer look at the evidence. Consumer price inflation in March hit a fresh 40-year high of 8.5 per cent in the US this week and a 30-year high of 7 per cent in the UK. It has two main causes, and bears many similarities to the first oil shock of late 1973, when Opec states enforced an oil embargo against countries supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war.

      Then, as now, both the US and UK labour markets were showing signs of excess demand. America’s unemployment rate fell to 3.6 per cent in March, only one-tenth of a percentage point higher than its lowest rate in over 50 years, allowing employees to bid up wages to an annual increase of 5.6 per cent. In the UK, the latest labour market figures this week showed an unemployment rate of 3.8 per cent, the lowest since 1973, an all-time record for the number of job vacancies. Total pay rose annually by 5.4 per cent.

      Compounding domestic excess demand in labour markets is a global supply shock, raising the price of fuel and energy. In the mid-1970s, the cause was a powerful cartel of oil producers seeking to punish the west. This time round, the culprits are stretched supply chains resulting from the lasting effects of the pandemic alongside a widespread desire to limit gas purchases from Russia.

      Adding to these global constraints on supply are signs of a lasting domestic hangover from Covid in the labour market, which has reduced the numbers of people ready and willing to work in both the US and UK.

      Inflation in the US and the UK is therefore both a demand-pull and a cost-push phenomenon, just like it was in the 1970s, requiring us all to relearn the lessons of that decade.
      …

      1. It is time to relearn the painful inflation lessons of the 1970s

        The real lesson is that all of this could have been avoided. But instead our global “leaders” chose to keep the first world, along with most of the rest of the world under house arrest and borrowed triliions to make up for it. They also embarked on a Quixotesque battle against fossil fuels, trying to force us into “going green” AND they backed one of world’s military powers into a corner and instigated a war that could have been easily prevented.

        Then, as now, both the US and UK labour markets were showing signs of excess demand

        How many millions are members of the free sh!t army. Labor shortage my keister. To paraphrase Ben, did Harry Potter wave his wand and make part of the labor force disappear?

    3. It’s 1973 again. Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison are gone except for their recordings. And the western economies are in a stagflationary tailspin.

      1. https://top40weekly.com/us-top-40-singles-week-ending-april-21st-1973/

        Top 40 list from this week in 1973. Some real classics on there.

        I occasionally I go through the country too 40 to see if there is anything memorable coming out but I never find anything. You can go back to the 60s and 70s and pretty much all the top 40 country charts have memorable songs they still play on the radio and people today would recognize. At some point in 80s or 90s, the songs on the top 40 country charts became forgettable. The songs just disappear after their 15 minutes of fame..

  15. Not housing related …

    Twitter Suspends LibsofTikTok For Featuring Liberals Talking About Themselves? – JONATHAN TURLEY
    https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/15/twitter-suspends-libsoftiktok-for-featuring-liberals-talking-about-themselves/

    (snip)

    The action seems consistent with the chillingly anti-free speech agenda of Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. In an interview with Technology Review editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield, he was asked how Twitter would balance its efforts to combat misinformation with wanting to “protect free speech as a core value” and to respect the First Amendment. Agrawal responded:

    “Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation. The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.

    One of the changes today that we see is speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard. The scarce commodity today is attention. There’s a lot of content out there. A lot of tweets out there, not all of it gets attention, some subset of it gets attention.”

    1. twitter is a private company, correct? so, no one is FORCED to use it. I do not. never had an account.
      so instead of endless raging & gnashing about it, just walk away.

      that’s how myspace died. it’s simple.

      either put up or shut up.

      all talk & no action makes jack a dull boy.
      and a hypocrite.

      Do. Something. About. It.
      Or Shut. (The FUK) up. Already!

      2. I agree with this. I don’t use it and never will. I did have an account set up until they banned DJT. That was the end for me. There’s nothing stopping a new platform to compete with them.

        1. I can’t even get Twitter to work. The images don’t load for me. I guess my browser isn’t up to the minute or some such. But how it could be difficult to load images in a browser in 2022 is beyond me.

      3. Elon is correct to target Twitter. The politics followers are looking for politics and miss all the financial gurus, sports news, kittens, stamp collectors, knitting, cars, laptop repair, school systems, weather stations, etc. Competing platforms only have conservative politics and antixvax.

    2. The only account worth reading on Twitter is Andy Ngo.

      I expect he will get banned too, for exposing the violence of Burn Loot Murder and Antifa.

      “They’re not sending their best”

  16. It is important to use multiple search engines. I was searching for that Clinton quote (thought it was Hillary but seems to be Bill) that said the government can spend money more effectively than individuals can. Google had literally nothing relevant. DuckDuckGo and Bing had the top hits leading me to the quote right at the top of the search results.

    I’m not saying one search engine is absolutely better than the other. In other areas google has the upper hand. But in political or highly charged searches, in my experience, it is definitely suppresses non-progressive or non-Democrat-friendly hits.

    1. I have been using DuckDuckGo exclusively for over a year now. It’s ok, but the results are pretty bad sometimes. But it’s a small price to pay.

  17. Is the mortgage bond market experiencing a historic crash? You barely see anything about this in the financial press.

    1. Business News
      Key mortgage rate climbs to the highest level in more than a decade
      The average 5 percent rate on the 30-year mortgage was up from 4.72 percent last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
      New homes at the Cielo at Sand Creek by Century Communities housing development in Antioch, Calif on Mar. 31, 2022. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
      April 14, 2022, 12:09 PM PDT / Source: Associated Press
      By The Associated Press

      WASHINGTON — Long-term U.S. mortgage rates continued to climb this week as the key 30-year loan rate reached 5 percent for the first time in more than a decade amid persistent high inflation.

      The average 5 percent rate on the 30-year mortgage was up from 4.72 percent last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
      …
      https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mortgage-rates-climb-highest-level-decade-rcna24465

        2. There’s at least somewhat of a logical connection between gas price hikes and Putin.

          1. a logical connection

            Of course, and that played for a few days. If you lay a straightedge on gasoline futures price chart from Dec 1st to today it would make you wonder. Maybe everyone knew the future?

  18. A reader sent this in:

    ‘At -27%, this is now the largest drawdown ever for the 20+ Year Treasury bond ETF. How did this happen? The 30-yr Treasury yield moved from 1.2% in Aug 2020 to 2.9% today, a 1.7% increase.’

    ‘$TLT has a duration of 18 yrs which means a price decline of 18% for every 1% increase in rates. And w/ a starting yield of 1.2%, there was no coupon to cushion the blow.’

    https://mobile.twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1514638366955999236

    1. There’s a lot of CR8R underway which the MSM financial press is barely reporting, because it’s primarily in the bond market, which has limited participation by individual investors, who prefer to gamble in stocks.

      A few months down the road, you can bank on numerous reports stating that, “Noone could have seen it coming!”

        1. I’ll ask again: is it rational to loan money to unca sam or joe shack borrower at these rates when inflation is more than twice as high?

          1. Jerome Powell has been sh!tting the bed for 18 months straight – diarrhea. How he has not been relieved of his duties is beyond me. The distortions are mind-blowing.

    2. So for decades the US Treasury market has been rigged by phony bidders (fed proxies) on behalf of the Fed itself. Now all of a sudden the Fed decides it doesn’t want to buy down rates?

  20. Does anyone actually believe the narrative coming out of China that they have locked down 26 million people, who are starving, yet they are complying.

    I think its fake news, just like everything else is. . So, what would be the purpose of it?
    As time goes on the narratives become more and more ridiculous. Sorry but I don’t believe that 26 million people could be contained , especially if they were starving or lacking food. .

    1. I think its fake news

      My girlfriend tutors online. She has a student in Winnipeg who has parents in Shanghai. Says it’s real. Says people are being beaten if they resist. Government delivers food packages but they are often stolen. Government wants to show it is more powerful than the virus.

      Our government also wants to show it is more powerful than a virus, or the people it rules. Just a matter of degrees of tyranny.

      1. This was never about public health. The only reason we’re not getting similar treatment is that we still have a 2nd Amendment. That gives the tyrants pause, for now.

      3. My girlfriend tutors online. She has a student in Winnipeg who has parents in Shanghai.

        What happened to the redhead?

      4. Ok, so do you really believe that China has a Covid crisis that’s two years delayed, based on the same testing methods that are bogus.?
        Don’t think for one minute that lockdowns aren’t coming back to the USA.
        .
        All the criminals that pulled off the first round of this fraud haven’t been stopped. Round 2 is coming.

          1. I think he means round 2 of spring 2020, when many were hiding under their beds, at least in the US.

            In other countries, very easy to have lost count.

            I was thinking of taking a Rhine river cruise this year. Then I found out you still have to be jabbed to board the riverboat and maybe even to be admitted to the EU. So, I won’t be doing that. Plus, who knows if the Euros will be locked down again this summer, so why even bother? There are things to do in the US.

    2. It’s a new Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution.

      The Party, like in the last Cultural Revolution, is having a civil war. The People will suffer until the Party reaches a balance.

  21. “House prices may have already fallen further than some figures suggest, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand’s latest House Price Index. Nationally, the HPI is down 4.3% from its peak, with the biggest falls occurring in the Auckland and Wellington regions with the HPI down 7.8% from its peak in both regions. Over the three months to the end of March the HPI had declined in eight regions, increased in three and was unchanged in one. That suggests the decline in prices is now widespread and is gathering pace.”

    “‘FOMO (fear of missing out) appears to have given way to INPT (I’m not paying that), aka FOOP (fear of over-paying), aka FOBAP (fear of buying at peak). No matter the acronym, it’s all the same: animal spirits have changed direction, and that has the potential to surprise even the best house price models,’ said ANZ senior economist Miles Workman.”

    – FOMO is now FOOP and FOBAP! How about “Fear of catching a falling knife” (FOCAFK)? Also, “I’m not (ever) paying that (INEPT)!

    – Whatever happened to “It’s always a good time to buy?,” or “always be closing (ABC)?”

    – There was a lot of mania global house buying over the last two years. I sure hope everyone put 20% down and no one overpaid!

    “Animal Spirits Have Changed Direction”

    – “The central bank giveth (the punchbowl) and the central bank taketh away (the punchbowl).”

    “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffett

    “Genius is a rising market.” – Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith

    “Participants in the speculative situation are programmed for sudden efforts at escape. Thus the rule, supported by the experience of centuries: the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang. There will be occasion to see the operation of this rule frequently repeated.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

    “No warning can save people determined to grow suddenly rich” – Lord Overstone

    “Stock [House] prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” —  Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, October 15, 1929

    – The slow-motion train wreck of the bursting of “The Everything Bubble” continues apace. I’m sure this will turn out OK though…

  22. “When to Walk Away From Your Mortgage
    There are times when it can be a prudent choice’ – investopedia

  23. Russell Wilson is gonna get schlonged!

    The former Seattle Seahawks quarterback and his wife, singer-songwriter Ciara, purchased a home in Cherry Hills Village, south of Denver, on April 1.

    The Denver Broncos secured Wilson as their new starting quarterback in a deal that became official in March.

    The 5-acre property has lots of goodies: four bedrooms, 12 bathrooms and a 2,590-square-foot pool house with an indoor pool.

    The $25 million sale is also a record-setter. The previous record for a Denver-area single-family home was the $15.725 million sale of former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan’s 13-bedroom home in Wilson’s new neighborhood, according to previous Denver Business Journal reporting.

    Any predictions on how much he’s gonna lose when he leaves Dumver and sells his mansion?

    1. The 2020 election was stolen.

      We are living under an illegitimate occupation government, controlled from behind the scenes by unelected globalist bureaucrats, and every one of these globalists needs to die.

      The Day Of The Rope is coming…

      1. We are definitely captured by a criminal Innsurrection by One World Order Globalists Private Parties that infiltrated governments, agencies, and they own the news narratives. .
        Big Pharmacy funds 75% of the ad revenue .

        They really think they are going to pull this off.

  25. One thing not mentioned in most housing discussions – the govt development costs. Toronto is looking to increase the DC cost by 49% from $94K to $140K for detached and semi houses. They would have to pay for other items like community benefits etc.


    https://duchetridao.com/toronto-proposes-at-49-increase-to-development-charges-brandon-donnelly

    To translate this into a specific example, let’s assume that you’re building a 300 unit apartment building with 180 one bedroom suites and 120 two bedroom suites.

    Under these proposed DC rates, this would translate into charges of about $9.6mm for the one bedroom suites and $9.8mm for the two bedroom suites, totaling over $19.4mm in DCs alone. But keep in mind that there would be other charges on top of this for parkland dedication, community benefits, and a bunch of other things.

  27. “Now, they only had a couple of showings and actually lowered the listing price to drive up more interest.”

    Denial.

  28. Can anyone who understands kindly explain what is holding back the HODLers from dumping their stonks before the widely anticipated crash?

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion
      The Long View
      A confused market leaves investors groping for answers
      Loading up with tail risk hedges is one option as uncertainty about inflation and future Fed decisions grows
      Katie Martin
      Two women in beachwear sit on sunloungers during a downpour of rain
      Investors know something is wrong, but they are carrying on regardless
      © Getty Images
      Katie Martin
      17 hours ago

      In one rather dark internet meme, a bulgy-eyed cartoon dog wearing a small hat sits sipping from a mug at a table, surrounded by encroaching flames. “This is fine,” it says to itself. Financial markets have a similar ring to them now — investors know something is wrong, but they are carrying on regardless.

      The monthly survey of fund managers compiled by Bank of America is always a useful way to test the mood. April’s update reflects the canine’s situation rather neatly.

      Some 71 per cent of investors are expecting a weaker economy over the next 12 months, the survey showed. It’s the most pessimistic reading ever on data going back to 1995 — not even March 2020 and the financial crisis of 2008 match it. A clear majority of investors — 64 per cent — expect the benchmark S&P 500 index of US stocks to drop below 4,000, a 10 per cent fall from current levels, before it cracks above 5,000.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      US banks
      Wall Street banks detail Russia losses and warn of more volatility
      Executives say losses are manageable but are wary of possible spillover effects
      The losses reported by US banks are small compared with their earnings, supporting the view at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that they faced less risk than European peers
      © Reuters
      Joshua Franklin and Imani Moise in New York and Stephen Morris in London April 14 2022

      Wall Street banks detailed billions of dollars in potential losses from the war in the Ukraine this week, while warning that they saw no end in sight for the market turbulence unleashed by the Russian invasion.

      Industry analysts and executives described the losses as manageable, but expressed worries about the potential for spillover effects of the kind that led to the cancellation of some nickel trades on the London Metal Exchange last month.

      Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chief executive, said during his bank’s first-quarter earnings report: “I cannot foresee any scenario at all where you’re not going to have a lot of volatility in markets.”
      …

    3. The Financial Times
      Citigroup Inc
      Citi profits tumble as bank warns it could lose $3bn in Russia
      US lender says Russian exposure has fallen to $7.8bn this quarter
      Citigroup headquarters in New York
      Citi did not provide an update on the Russian sale process, but sanctions have made it unlikely the lender could exit the business without further losses
      © Bloomberg
      Imani Moise in New York April 14 2022

      Citigroup’s profit nearly halved in the first quarter as the US bank warned of up to $3bn in potential losses linked to its Russian operations.

      Citi said on Thursday it had set aside $1.9bn to cover loan losses, including $1bn for its Russian exposure and $900mn to cushion the blow from deteriorating economic conditions driven by inflation and soaring energy prices.
      …

    4. The Financial Times
      Corporate bonds
      US corporate bond trades fail as banks avoid Russia links
      Value of unsettled transactions has doubled since invasion of Ukraine in February and imposition of sanctions
      A man walks by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building
      Data from the New York Fed show nearly $70bn of transactions failed in the week ending April 6
      © Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
      Joe Rennison in New York
      April 14 2022

      The number of failed trades in the US corporate bond market shot higher following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with investors linking the settlement problems to sanctions imposed after the war began.

      Nearly $70bn of transactions failed in the week ending April 6, and for the past six weeks failed trades have averaged just over $86bn, according to data updated on Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

      The value of failed trades was sharply higher than the long-term average of $40bn a week, which had largely persisted into January. In the week that ended on March 23, close to $150bn of trades failed, the most since 2007.

      A complex chain of custody ties together the market for US corporate bonds, where roughly $30bn of securities change hands daily. Once a bond is traded, investors pass it on to their prime broker, who then settles the trade, in effect confirming a change in ownership.

      But differences between bank trading desks, prime brokers and other financial intermediaries in how to implement myriad sanctions against Russia have upset this process. Investors and bankers have pointed to new challenges in trading corporate bonds with links to the country.

      “The data bears out what we are hearing,” said Andrew Shoyer, a lawyer at Sidley Austin. “You have opportunistic buyers who look at this hungrily and are trying to make trades, but are meeting frustrations with intermediaries and financial institutions.”
      …

    5. The Financial Times
      Pimco
      Pimco stands to lose billions if Russia defaults on its debt
      Fund manager exposed to derivatives bet of at least $1.1bn and holds $1.5bn of sovereign bonds
      In selling the credit default swaps to other investors, Pimco effectively wagered that Russia would pay its creditors
      © (c) Transversospinales | Dreamstime.com
      Joe Rennison and Brooke Masters in New York March 9 2022

      Pimco has billions of dollars riding on the economic fallout from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after amassing a wager worth at least $1bn in derivatives markets that the country will not default while also holding $1.5bn of its sovereign debt.

      The California-based asset manager started off the year exposed to $1.1bn of credit default swaps on Russian debt. The derivative contracts are intended to compensate the holders in the event that the underlying bond issuer, in this case Russia, fails to make its payments.

      At least five Pimco funds sold the CDS to investors, according to a Financial Times analysis of the asset manager’s holdings at the end of 2021. Pimco also holds more than $1.5bn of government bonds tied to the Russian Federation, according to aggregated holdings data from Bloomberg.
      …

      1. PIMCO’s $1.1bn of credit default swaps on Russian debt will have to be paid right away; it’s an insurance product. The other $1.5bn of government bonds was just a gamble. What PIMCO really wants (needs) is a “Powell Put.”

    6. Anyone care to guess the effect on interest rates of countries such as Russia and China defaulting on billions worth of debt in the international financial markets?

    7. The Financial Times
      Charts that Matter US equities
      Inverted US yield curve is not always gloomy for stocks
      Recession worries build but equities seen as having staying power
      Nicholas Megaw in New York April 10 2022

      The US government bond market is signalling concerns about an impending recession, but past experience suggests the trend is not always a reliable omen for the country’s stock market.

      An “inverted yield curve” — when short-term government bonds offer higher returns than longer-term government debt — has typically been viewed as an indicator of a looming economic contraction. And late last month that indicator flashed red when the yield on two-year US Treasuries briefly rose above the yield on 10-year notes for the first time since 2019.

      Deutsche Bank became one of the first major banks to say its baseline economic forecasts now included a recession starting in late 2023. More than half of institutional investors surveyed about the inversion by Royal Bank of Canada said they were “very worried” or “somewhat worried” about the yield curve and 42 per cent said they expected a recession before the end of next year.

      Still, that may not translate into a stock market fall. The S&P 500 index of US stocks has returned a median of 9 per cent in the 12 months following previous yield curve inversions and 16 per cent over two years, according to Goldman Sachs.

      The data highlight the fact that, although the bond market has a decent record as a warning sign, downturns often take some time to arrive.

      “If we are going to see a recession, it’s not going to be for a while,” said Jonathan Golub, chief US equity strategist at Credit Suisse. “You’ve still got a lot of runway from an equity investing point of view.”
      …

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