Americans are buying fewer cars, tariffs are shrinking automakers’ margins, the shift to electric mobility has stalled, and a company making car loans to subprime borrowers recently collapsed, all indications that a key U.S. industry might be rolling downhill.
U.S. households spent 0.6 percent more in August than in July, the commerce department reported. Economists in a Reuters poll expected a 0.5-percent gain.
At the end of this year’s second quarter, worldwide debt had climbed to $337.7 trillion as the world’s economy weakened, central banks reduced interest rates, and the U.S. dollar’s value continued to slump, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) reported.
Sales of euro-denominated bonds by U.S. companies—including Alphabet, Fiserv, PepsiCo, Verizon, and Visa—have notched a record $100 billion this year through mid-September as European interest rates remain attractive and the dollar loses its luster, Reuters reported.
Tracking trends is the understanding of where we are and how we got here to see where we are going. On the housing market front, let’s take a look at how we got here.
Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. GDP grew by 1.25 percent during the first six months of this year, initial government data indicates.
The U.S. economy added a net 73,000 nonfarm jobs last month, well below economists’ modest expectation of 100,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
On 18 June, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee held its policy interest rates steady at 4.25 percent for deposits and 4.50 percent for loans. The decision to do so was unanimous, notes from the meeting showed.
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI), a broad survey of economic signals, ticked down in May from 99.1 to 99 to match economists’ forecasts.
As we had long forecast, President Trump will keep pushing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. After the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the U.S. economy added 139,000 jobs in May—more than expected—Donald Trump took to social media to demand that the U.S. Federal Reserve and its Chairman Jerome Powell lower the central bank’s interest rate.