Tag: april 26 2022

Pig iron, the raw form of iron used to make steel, is vanishing from the American market: two-thirds of the pig iron U.S. steelmakers import comes from Russia and Ukraine, those shipments have ceased because of the war, and sanctions have blocked new orders for deliveries from Russia. About 70 percent of steel made in...

The U.S. Federal Reserve needs to hike interest rates to a so-called “neutral” level as quickly as it can and be prepared to raise rates higher than neutral if inflation fails to moderate, Thomas Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said in an 12 April speech at a New York University event. ...

Speaking at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund on 21 April, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve hinted the central bank is likely to raise its key interest rate by half a percentage point when its rate-setting committee meets next month. Powell cited the Fed’s series of rate hikes from 2004...

Builders’ confidence in the market for new homes has slipped for the fourth consecutive month, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) / Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. The index edged down from 79 in March to 77 in April. It stood at 83 a year ago. Any reading above 50 indicates optimism...

Interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.11 percent during the week ending 21 April, compared to 5.0 percent a week earlier, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). Rates notched their seventh consecutive week of increases, reaching their highest since April 2010, which saw an average rate of 5.21 percent, Freddie...

The median selling price of a U.S. home rose 15 percent to $373,300 in March, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a record dating back to at least 1999. At the same time, sales fell 2.7 percent nationwide from February, and 4.5 percent year on year, as rising mortgage interest rates combined with...

The Dow Jones Transportation Average, which tracks share prices of 20 major freight-moving companies, declined 13 percent in value from 29 March through 12 April, The Wall Street Journal reported. Many investors see transportation stocks as leading indicators, losing value when business and consumer spending decline and often signaling a broad economic slowdown ahead. The...

Keeping the war talk going, share prices of aerospace and defense-related companies were leading the broader market this year by 17 points as of 23 April, the most in a decade and only the third time since 1999, according to an MSCI index. Investors see Western nations adding to military budgets as a result of...