Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT – May 16 2023

Credit card companies offering deposit services to their customers are seeing an inflow of cash as people seek places other than small and regional banks to store their money.

In April, downtown pedestrian traffic in the U.S. was about 25 percent less than during the same month in 2019, real estate software provider MRI Springboard reported.

Pity the rich: households earning more than $125,000 have seen their incomes and discretionary spending decline faster during the current economic malaise than those of households classified as low-income, according to Bank of America (BoA).

Homeowners who might want to sell their houses feel trapped by the low interest rates they have on their mortgages and are unwilling to have to start a new mortgage with today’s far higher rates, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In this year’s first quarter, home prices fell in 31 percent of the 221 metro areas monitored by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The price of credit default swaps, which insure holders against government default, are now more expensive for U.S. treasury securities than for the same protection in Brazil, Greece, or Mexico, Bloomberg reported.

A U.S. recession would tighten the credit market and could throw more than 8 percent of corporate bonds—about $920 billion worth—into distress, the last step before default, according to a client note from Bank of America (BoA) analysts.