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| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 4,168 | 14.8 |
| Oil (WTI) | 63.44 | 1.47 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.61% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.18% |
Stocks are higher this morning on overseas strength. Bonds and MBS are up.
Existing home sales fell 2.7% in April, according to NAR. The median home price rose 19.1% (!) to $341,600. Not sure what to make of that number. I am guessing that the lower price tier is completely picked over, and people are reaching for luxury properties, but who knows? The median price a year ago was $286,600 so perhaps that number was depressed a little? Year-over-year comparisons are going to be a bit wonky across the board for the next few months.
The seasonally-adjusted annual pace of sales hit 5.85 million, which was up big compared to lockdown-depressed numbers a year ago. There were only 1.2 million units in inventory, which represents a 2.4 month supply. These are record lows going to back to the early 80s. Days on market fell to 17.
First time homebuyers represented 31% of sales, and they are struggling to compete with cash buyers and investors who are snapping up properties. All-cash transactions were 25% of sales compared to 15% a year ago.
Delinquencies fell below 5% in April, according to Black Knight’s First Look. Total delinquencies fell to 4.66%, which is down 7% from March and 28% from a year ago. 30 day DQs did tick up compared to March however. Foreclosure starts were only 3,700, however that is being affected by the foreclosure moratorium. Once that is lifted, we should see a wave of foreclosures as there are 1.8 million loans in the seriously delinquent status. This is an increase of 1.3 million from a year ago.
If we do see an uptick in foreclosures, the big difference from 2010 would be the home equity. Anyone who bought a home 2 or 3 years ago should have enough equity to sell the home, close out the existing mortgage, and move somewhere cheaper.
Despite a tight inventory picture, RE/MAX reported that April was the strongest in 13 years. RE/MAX reported that there was only 1.1 month’s worth of inventory, and home prices increased 5.9%. Days on market hit a low at 32. “Even with rising home prices, super-quick turnarounds, and fierce competition for available listings, April 2021 saw more home sales than any April in at least 13 years. That’s a clear reflection of overwhelming demand and the resilience of today’s buyers,” said Adam Contos, CEO of RE/MAX Holdings, Inc. “The 32 Days on Market average – a report record – is noteworthy, too. Many listings are being snapped up the day they go on sale – or within just a few days. That pace underscores the importance of an experienced professional who can guide you to smart decisions and quick action – on either side of the transaction.”
Note how much the RE/MAX numbers differ from NAR. 19% home price appreciation versus 6%, 32 days on market versus 17.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
The comments are amusing though I don’t know why lefties are against this.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/20/2031402/-Five-Oregon-counties-vote-to-consider-joining-Greater-Idaho-which-also-is-friendly-to-the-idea
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The exact same reason they don’t want the Jews to have Israel. Why they don’t actually want a two-state solution and don’t blame Palestine for blowing up any possible two-state solution any time it has been near-achievable.
They don’t want right-wingers to have a state. Or a city. Or a Parler or a Gab. They don’t want there to be a Conservative Twitter on Twitter. They don’t want there to be conservative colleges or conservative anything.
Allowing conservative and moderates/independents to have a big unified state that would also be reliably red in most elections for years and perhaps decades to come is unacceptable. But even if the deal was it got less electoral votes or electoral votes were apportioned by district–it wouldn’t matter. They would still objective, because they don’t want those kinds of people to have a voice in their own government or to feel like they have someplace that they belong.
It’s bad enough that they have so much of Texas.
These kinds of quasi-secessionist campaigns have floated around among right-wing extremists for many years in what the Southern Poverty Law Center aptly describes as the “long-running history of malcontents, racists and secessionists actively promoting policy through allies at the state level throughout the country.” Neo-Confederates have argued for a “second secession” by Southern states, while Texas has been home to a variety of “Texas Republic” schemes by far-right “Patriots.” In recent years, conspiracy theorists claiming the United Nations secretly controls federal environmental regulation have tried to create a “State of Jefferson” in northern California.
Their largely fantasy narrative above is why they say they object. Why they really object, I think, is more like what I said: the goal is to take spaces away from conservatives and traditionalists and rob them of any power, even in their own lives. Parler isn’t a state with electoral votes. Neither is Gab. Various websites they work to get deplatformed for “hate speech” have no electoral power.
It’s all about identifying a class of people whom you decide are to blame for everything bad, and take everything away from them. You certainly aren’t going to let them get together and build a peaceful community! They don’t deserve that.
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Pass the popcorn:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard
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Greenwald comes off as a bit petty and personal in the piece, but his ultimate point is sound: the media claiming they should be able to do whatever they want and say whatever they want about anybody they want and nobody should be allowed to challenge or critique them is not sustainable.
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It’s in direct response to this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/greenwald-intercept-feud/2021/05/20/34732c92-b727-11eb-a5fe-bb49dc89a248_story.html
The Intercept shopped a hit piece against him around to other outlets and the Post obliged.
As mentioned before, it’s all high school cliques with the new generation of “journalists”.
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I know, he just seemed a little (but he often does) in favor of editorializing/narrative-shaping. But he’s not wrong about his primary point. At all.
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Yeah I agree on his tone, but I also appreciate that he won’t back down or be intimidated by these assholes.
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This was when I first figured out that Greenwald was an honest leftist back in 2011:
https://www.salon.com/2011/01/18/cheney_72/
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It is the “Republicans Pounce” narrative in a different form.
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This would be awesome! Go for it, Nancy,
https://www.theepochtimes.com/pelosi-suggests-she-may-bar-unvaccinated-unmasked-republicans-from-house-floor_3824672.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
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Good read:
https://mate.substack.com/p/accused-russian-spy-kilimnik-refutes
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I think progressives get even more unhinged when they win elections.
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These people are not tethered to reality. At all.
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Pretty good attendance for a handful of backbencher.
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/thousands-rally-gaetz-greene-arizona/
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The problem is they don’t think anybody else is tethered to reality—or I should say they don’t “feel” anybody else is tethered to reality. They have a view that is mostly their feelings and they can’t be wrong so data is white supremacist.
I notice there’s no arguments as to what verifiable data leads to the idea that white supremacist autocracy is right around the corner.
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I think the issue is that all of their fiction and TV shows have plots that revolve around the plucky woke feminist protagonist destroying sexist white supremacist men.
They think this is reality, and is going on in real life. They are incapable of separating fact from fiction.
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Apparently Democratic control of Congressional and the Executive Branches (I’d include SCOTUS, frankly) isn’t enough to demonstrate the rise of Dominionism.
Bitches, get ready for legal rape!
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“I notice there’s no arguments as to what verifiable data leads to the idea that white supremacist autocracy is right around the corner.”
Apparently one sign that the country “is on track to become functionally an authoritarian White Christian nationalist state in the very near future” is transgenders serving in the military.
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/983118029/pentagon-releases-new-policies-enabling-transgender-people-to-serve-in-the-milit
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Speaking to the weekly public radio show Latino USA on Friday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said members of Congress effectively “served in war” during the traumatising event that had “deeply affected lawmaking” and impacted the legislative process.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aoc-capitol-riot-attempted-coup-b1851772.html
No shit, there I was knee deep in guts… er… MAGA hats, I was down to my last clip of talking points…
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Well, technically, she is in another building being told about it.
So much oversell. I understand there is about half-the-country that buys in completely (NeverTrumpers, including those that still sound otherwise conservative) to whatever hyperbolic narrative is spun by whomever. But it just feels like oversell. You want to say Trump was stupid in how he handled it (which is one argument, although even that is a kind of: “Trump only said ‘protest peacefully’ once, and all his supporters are too stupid to get that message, and he knows it, so he intentionally didn’t repeat it a thousand times to get through the thick skulls of his stupid supporters because he WANTED that riot”). Also the whole story–gleefully repeated by the left, media, and Democrats–that he was just sitting watching the riots on TV because it was all about him and he was just hoping, fingers crossed, that they got in their and killed some people because it was ALL ABOUT HIM–sounds like such obvious fan-fiction there is no justification for running with it or even speculating about it without serious, on-the-record sourcing. Which there was none.
But back the oversell. I can buy it was bad and a lot of these people should legit face federal charges and there should be an investigation as to how the Capitol Police, specifically, handled the whole thing. Even if it leaves the question as to why so many people who’ve attacked other federal building during the Summer of Love aren’t any big deal.
But, frankly, a Jan. 6th commission (which they keep repeating to make Jan. 6th the equivalent of 9-11, which is super obvious to me, so why exactly am I supposed to trust these folks always obvious pushing a narrative like advertisers shilling for a brand?) would seem like a good idea to me . . . if they weren’t constantly overselling it.
Did read the antifa-type who was there goading folks on and filming it all had all his cash siezed from the sales of the footage. A lot of the coverage doesn’t mention that he clearly was egging things on and was definitely not a Trump supporter (aside: why is it so important for NeverTrumpers like Jonah Goldberg to dismiss that there was antifa-types at the rally, when there’s pretty much hard evidence as well as lots of circumstantial evidence that there were at least some, many of them acting as instigators). But at least he’s actually on the hook for his instigation.
But the political class on this issue (as well as many others) seems to be advertising more than ever that they are the elites, they are our fuedal lords, and some examples need to be set for the peasants so they know their place. Either they are very sure this is a universally popular sentiment (like celebrities are often sure they are universally beloved and their importance universally recognized) or they are probably over-estimating their ability in the future to keep a stranglehold on the vote. IMO.
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“I was like, yes,” he said. “I take it to mean: now I’m being seen.”
I hope that guy is planning to go into the financial corps or marching band or something.
But yes. Making transgender inclusion the primary goal of the military–along with fighting climate change–is exactly what you would expect a right-wing autocracy to do.
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James Carville gave away the strategy on the January 6 commission.
No reason the Republicans should help them with this.
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I don’t think this will have the resonance that they think it will. Heck, 5 years of the most vituperative language from the party and the media succeeded in garnering Trump 10 million more voters in 2020, an incumbent feat unheard of in the modern era.
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My impression is while what went on under Trump was unprecedented–from the Dems somewhat but even more so from the media–what’s been going on since Biden took office is just unheard of, at least in my lifetime. Even accepting that a lot of people won’t be paying that close attention, it seems really, really risky.
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Heck, 5 years of the most vituperative language from the party and the media succeeded in garnering Trump 10 million more voters in 2020, an incumbent feat unheard of in the modern era.
If it weren’t for COVID, Trump would have been re-elected.
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Without a doubt. If nothing else, just the shellgame COVID allowed to be played with voting probably made a difference there. Also, a lot of on-the-fence Trump voters probably were unhappy with how Trump handled the COVID.
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Never trust the media:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/22/well-intervene-to-restore-trust-in-the-bbc-warn-ministers
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Not then, not now, not after.
All the response seems performative. Like Gell-Man amnesia indicates about the press–when it comes to institutions and experts generally, we always seem to forget what we know. Institutions are all made up out of flawed human beings. Many of whom are gaming the system, out for themselves, or just profoundly mistaken. The people in institutions have their self-interest to look out for, are influenced be peer pressure, and can be quietly subsumed into the “cult” of any institution they join.
People are flawed. An institution is just a group of people, usually with similar backgrounds and interests, that were they all marching in the street we would call a mob. Institutions are basically mobs with fancy clothes and a nice haircut.
Which is fine as long as enough people remember that. When the amnesia sets in, that’s when it becomes a problem.
I don’t expect the BBC is going to get meaningfully better.
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Good one from Taibbi today.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/fact-checking-takes-another-beating
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Very good. What I’ve been saying about fact checking for the last few years at least. What they’ve been calling fact checks just aren’t—-finding someone with a different opinion from some other opinion and calling that a “fact check” doesn’t make it a fact check.
But he makes an excellent point that what fact checks are trying to do now just isn’t possible—you can’t fact check everything with some sort of universal omniscience. Fact checks are about making sure you aren’t completely wrong about basic, knowable, established facts. It’s not deriving some essential truth about issues in conflict about which there is limited and changing information.
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Fact checking is nothing but putting your partisan spin on something.
It is why Trump and Bernie could cite the same stat and Bernie would be “mostly true” while Trump would be “mostly false”
Taibbi still refuses to admit the mainstream media is in the business of pushing the leftist ball down the field.
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So called objective journalism was always about pushing the leftist ball downfield and I bet Taibbi and Greenwald believe that it was and is the proper role of journalism.
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I get the sense Greenwald has his own ideas of where the ball should be pushed, irrespective of anybody else’s opinion. On freedom of speech and cancel culture he’s pretty far right to right-libertarian.
On Israel he’s clearly far left.
I feel Taibbi is more “evolving” and ultimately, yes, would think the ball should be pushed in the direction of big-city urban liberalism but he spent most of the Trump presidency deriding the Russia-gate nonsense, and so far seems to be mostly to criticize the media and the far left. So one might reasonably conclude he feels the ball at this point has been pushed a little too far down the field in the leftward direction.
I will take a dozen Taibbis. More. A media full of him and Greenwald. Take ’em over Jonah Goldberg any day at this point.
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I’m not saying they’re worse than Goldberg, my point is that, essentially, all journalists yearn to be the information gatekeeper. It’s part of the allure of journalism, of why they became one.
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I don’t think Taibbi or Greenwald do. Among other things, they were canceled by the gatekeepers and Greenwald is posting other journalists on his substack who disagree with him.
“I bet Taibbi and Greenwald believe that it was and is the proper role of journalism.”
No, Greenwald in particular states that there’s no such thing as objective journalism and it’s more important to state your biases.
Taibbi argues that “objective” journalism was in fact a business decision based on only having three broadcast networks and usually one or two local papers.
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Thank you, I stand corrected.
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Speaking of Fact Checking, this is worth a read:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-how-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-suddenly-became-credible/
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The whole concept of unbiased journalism was the brainchild of Walter Lippman, a NY socialist.
It was gaslighting from the start. The job of journalism has always been to push the leftist ball down the field.
It is why Walter Duranty won a fucking Pulitzer for covering up Holomodor.
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“Good one from Taibbi today.”
I saw it and Scott was the first person I thought of when I read this:
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