In recent times, the economic landscape has presented an array of challenges that have profoundly affected the business community. Some of the most significant challenges include soaring inflation rates, escalating interest rates, looming fears of a recession, and a tangible decrease in revenues for many sectors…all made worse by the COVID War which destroyed the lives and livelihoods of billions across the globe.
As we note in this Trends Journal, while the report from the U.S. Labor Department showed a sharp increase in jobs last month, most of them were in the low paying hospitality, service, health and social services sectors.
On 29 September, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase a collective total of $53 million after the banks “failed to report, or failed to correctly report, more than 40 million swap transactions,” the CFTC said.
Fedex and UPS are offering discounts to bulk customers such as Amazon and other retailers to ease the pain of what is expected to be a weak holiday sales season, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In July, the ability of a family with a median income to afford to buy a home selling for the median price sank to its lowest since 1989, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) housing affordability index.
During the week ending 29 September, the average U.S. interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage surpassed 7.5 percent for the time since November 2000, plunging applications for new and refinanced home loans to their fewest since 1996, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Americans reduced their outstanding non-revolving debt, such as auto and student loans, by $30.3 billion in August, according to U.S. Federal Reserve data. The figure represents a 9.8-percent reduction over the previous 12 months.
Since March 2020, government bonds with maturities of 10 years or more have dropped 46 percent in price, with the 30-year bond losing 53 percent, Yahoo Finance reported.
In one of our Top Trends for 2023, we warned of a Middle East Meltdown. Since that time, as we have reported extensively and now it is right in front of everyone’s eyes, the Middle East is melting down.
Echoing Gerald Celente’s July 2020 forecast, Bloomberg’s Markets Live Pulse survey reports that a majority of 919 respondents believe that the market value of U.S. office buildings is due to crash.