Tag: jan 18 2022

U.S. mortgage rates rose last week for the third consecutive week to their highest since March 2020 when the COVID War began, The Wall Street Journal reported. The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan moved up to 3.45 percent on 13 January, compared to 3.22 percent the week before and 2.79 percent a year...

The expanded child tax credits that were part of president Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan expired 30 December, canceling the $300-per-child monthly stipend that, collectively, put an average of $16 billion a month into the U.S. economy, according to J.P. Morgan. That was more than twice what Americans spend on average each month on electronics...

U.S. retail sales edged down 1.9 percent in December, in tandem with a 0.3-percent decline in industrial production, its first slip since September, attributed to supply-chain problems, according to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve and commerce department released 14 January. Excluding autos, which still are selling briskly, consumer sales fell 2.3 percent, defying Dow...

The average annual household income Americans would need to feel financially secure is $128,000, according to a new survey of 2,000 adults by Personal Capital and the Harris Poll. That figure is nearly double the median household income of $67,521, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Almost half of poll respondents said their debts...

Apple may not have invented the metaverse, but investors are betting that the company’s knack for cashing in on new technologies will make it a major player in the digital universe. Earlier this month, Apple became the first company with a market cap above $3 trillion during intraday trading. The boost came from investors’ confidence...

During this year’s first five trading days, bank stocks jumped 5.4 percent, their best start to a year since 2010, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index retreated 1.9 percent. Share prices of Citizens Financial Group, M&T Bank Corp., and Regions Financial Corp. all shot up about 15 percent on the week. The spike followed...

Last week, investors snapped up shares of funds that buy U.S. loans, expecting to profit when the U.S. Federal Reserve begins raising interest rates this spring, a move that will come sooner than many had expected until recently. The funds collected $1.9 billion in new money last week through 12 January, their largest haul since...

Real bond yields—the return investors make on bonds after inflation takes its cut—have been rising, luring investors away from tech stocks and causing their share prices to slide, analysts told the Financial Times. Share prices for tech stocks not showing a profit are down 7 percent this year; last year’s IPOs are down an average...

More than 36 percent of tech stocks listed on NASDAQ have lost at least half their value compared to their 52-week highs, although the index itself remains just 8 percent below its recent peak, Bloomberg reported. Typically, when the tech-heavy NASDAQ is within 10 percent of its highest recent value, only about 12.5 percent of...