Here we go again, the only “Big” news in the business media is and has been for over two years plus... all about the rising equity markets and their chosen people, “The Magnificent Seven” ...the highest of highest of hi-tech supreme beings, and most of all, their AI religion.
Interest rates are down, consumer spending is up, corporate earnings are strong, bond values have risen, and tax cuts are giving corporations more money for growth.
U.S. spot gold briefly rose to $3,893 on 3 October as concerns over the U.S. Congress’s paralyzed discussions over reopening the government combined with growing certainty over the U.S. Federal Reserve’s impending interest rate reduction, Reuters said.
Last month, sales of pre-owned homes rose 1.8 percent year on year but slipped 0.2 percent from July as mortgage interest rates rose once more, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported.
Hiring seasonal help for the year-end holiday shopping season is poised to be the lowest since 2009 in the Great Recession, a signal that retailers expect especially weak sales, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in a report last week.
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.
U.S. households had a more gloomy outlook on the economy in September than in August, according to the University of Michigan’s monthly survey of consumer sentiment.
By several measures, consumer prices continued to rise again in August.
In this year’s second quarter, the U.S. economy grew by a robust 3.8 percent, the commerce department reported, not the 3.3 percent estimated earlier.