Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group asset management firm and now among the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the U.S., will add another $1 billion in rental houses to its inventory this year, the company has said. Home prices are at record levels, pricing many prospective buyers out of the market....

The number of U.S. homes for sale is the lowest in almost 50 years, and the imbalance between eager buyers and available houses will last for several years, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a 2 May research note. About 1.3 million households will form annually through 2024, the bank estimates. The typical age at which...

Sales of existing homes in April fell 2.7 percent year-over-year, the third consecutive month of decline, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported. Rising mortgage rates and record home prices, now averaging $341,000, have pushed even more potential buyers out of the market, analysts said. More homes came on the market in April, bringing the...

The U.S. economy will not achieve full employment – a key benchmark the U.S. Federal Reserve has said it will use in deciding when to raise interest rates – until at least the fourth quarter of 2022, Fitch Ratings predicted in a note to clients. To reach full employment, the economy needs to add about...

The 0.5-percent gain in consumer spending in April resulted from a 1.1-percent jump in spending on services such as hair styling and gym visits, the U.S. Commerce Department reported. Spending on merchandise slid 0.6 percent during the month. However, the rise in the amount of money spent came as the result of inflation, which bumped...

In 26 May testimony before Congress, the CEOs of three major U.S. banks said their institutions remain at arm’s length from cryptocurrencies. American banks face pressure from customers and consumers to open their doors to private digital currencies but worry about dealing in assets that are unregulated and regularly experience unpredictable gyrations in price. Cryptocurrencies...

Where are the markets heading?  Since the COVID War began, governments and central banks have pumped unprecedented amounts of cheap money to artificially prop up locked down economies and failing equity markets. Last year, the Trends Journal was the first publication to forecast that equities and economies would come tumbling down when inflation moved sharply...