Tag: feb 1 2022

General Motors has announced investments of almost $7 billion to build an electric-vehicle battery plant in Michigan and retool a factory near Detroit to make electric Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks. The two plants will employ about 4,000 people, GM estimated. The state of Michigan gave GM $824 million in tax breaks and...

In 2021, investors bought a record $809 billion worth of commercial real estate, according to Real Capital Analytics, far surpassing 2019’s previous $600-billion record and doubling 2020’s total. Among the best sellers: apartment buildings, raking in $335.3 billion, 128 percent more than in 2020, as landlords kept raising rates in the face of relentless demand;...

Rental rates across the U.S. for places to live rose an average of 12 percent in January to set a new record, according to Zumper, an online rental agency. Last month, U.S. renters paid an average of $1,374 for a one-bedroom apartment, compared to $1,217 a year earlier, Zumper said. In 2020 and 2021, rents...

The number of pending home sales slid 3.8 percent in December compared to November and fell 6.9 percent from December 2020, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The number dropped most in the west and northeast, both of which were off by at least 10 percent, although all regions of the country saw...

With the flow of free government money ending and inflation rising, U.S. consumer spending edged down 0.6 percent in December from November, the first monthly decline since February 2021, the U.S. commerce department reported. With the fear of Omicron spending and people afraid to go out, plus a 7-percent inflation rate that set a 40-year...

The U.S. economy grew 6.9 percent in last year’s fourth quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, the strongest quarter in more than a year and far ahead of analysts’ predictions, which averaged 5.5 percent. The growth rate tripled the previous quarter’s pace of 2.3 percent. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE),...

Salaries and wages grew by 4 percent in 2021, their greatest yearly gain since 2001, the U.S. labor department reported, as employers competed for scarce workers during the Great Resignation. Pay is increasing across the economy, from restaurants boosting wages to, or above, $15 an hour and investment banks paying six figures to hire financial...

The U.S. municipal bond market has seen its worst beginning to a new year since 2011, with the S&P Municipal Bond Index losing 1.1 percent in the first 20 days of this year. Muni bond funds took in $830 million in new investment this year through 19 January, compared to $6.1 billion for the same...

Every trading day during January, individual investors put more money into U.S. stocks than they extracted, according to data service VandaTrack, with new investments exceeding 2021’s average on all but two of the days. Individuals are continuing to buy even as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has declined more than 9 percent from its...

The U.S. Federal Reserve has all but promised to begin raising interest rates next month as inflation raged at 7 percent, a 40-year high, in December and as the Fed is ready to end its $120-billion monthly bond  purchases that has propped up the U.S. economy and equity markets since March 2020. At a 26...