In July, home prices slipped from their peaks in almost 85 percent of major U.S. real estate markets, with a third showing declines of 1 percent or more and one in ten posting a slide of at least 4 percent, according to Black Knight Data & Analytics, a real estate services firm. July’s slump followed...
Last week, president Joe Biden announced $1 billion in federal funding for 21 regional partnerships across the U.S., focused on advanced manufacturing, biotech, clean energy, and other sectors. The money was part of the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) that passed Congress all the way back in March 2021. In 2020, the U.S. Federal Reserve...
Heavily indebted companies defaulted on $6 billion worth of junk bonds in August, the most since October 2020 when the COVID War was grinding the U.S. economy, Fitch Ratings reported. More defaults are ahead for the outstanding $1.5 trillion in junk bonds, defined as securities assigned a rating of BB or lower by Standard &...
Investors have been steadily pruning their bond portfolios this year, clearing out corporate as well as government bonds, and driving bonds into their first bear market in decades. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, which tracks both kinds of bonds, declined more than 20 percent from its most recent high last week, the definition of...
The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should have a Congressionally authorized role in regulating “non security tokens and related intermediaries” as long as that role does not infringe on the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) broader authority over the industry, SEC chair Gary Gensler told a crypto industry conference on 8 September. Gensler has...
Cryptocurrencies’ crash in recent months proved that established and regulated financial houses, not just start-ups, should offer cryptocurrency platforms and services, Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS, Singapore’s biggest bank, told the Financial Times. Trusting larger institutions that can implement “guard rails” for crypto speculators will better protect players and help stabilize crypto values, he said. ...
Despite crypto firms’ persistent complaints that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is unfairly targeting them for scrutiny, the agency will not reduce its oversight, SEC enforcement director Gurbir Grewal said on 9 September at a Washington conference. The SEC has a duty to protect naïve, poor, and minority investors, Grewal added. Crypto’s recent...
The U.S. announced last week a new financial package for Ukraine’s war effort while Kyiv announced significant gains on the battlefield during its counteroffensive in the east. The total sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February is at $67 billion according to Anti-War.com Counteroffensive As of Tuesday afternoon, Kyiv claimed its troops liberated...
By Gary Null PhD Science is clear. There are hundreds of reliable peer-reviewed studies supporting the benefits of a Mediterranean or a healthy plant-based diet for relieving and treating disease, including a variety of cancers. On the other side of the equation, there are equally many studies that have determined unhealthy foods such as meat...
Well before the Russia-Ukraine War outbreak, and before it was on the national radar, The Trends Journal picked up on a story from Wisconsin farmers noting fertilizer supply problems (see “THE PRICE OF UREA IN CHINA” 12 Oct 2021). We suggested some enterprising American companies might want to get back into the fertilizer business, instead...