Morning Report: Home prices up; confidence down

Vital Statistics:

 LastChange
S&P futures3,92824.75
Oil (WTI)110.61-0.14
10 year government bond yield 3.22%
30 year fixed rate mortgage 5.90%

Stocks are higher this morning as China eases lockdown restrictions. Bonds and MBS are down.

House prices rose 1.6% MOM and 18.8% YOY according to the FHFA House Price Index. “House price appreciation continues to remain elevated in April,” said Will Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “The inventory of homes on the market remains low, which has continued to keep upward pressure on sales prices. Increasing mortgage rates have yet to offset demand enough to deter the strong price gains happening across the country.”

Separately the Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 1.8% MOM and 21.2% YOY. These appreciation numbers go back to April, so this is before the Fed really started pushing up rates. That said, I think the supply and demand situation is not really conducive to any sort of meaningful / widespread home price depreciation.

Consumer confidence fell again in June, according to the Conference Board. “Consumer confidence fell for a second consecutive month in June,” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “While the Present Situation Index was relatively unchanged, the Expectations Index continued its recent downward trajectory—falling to its lowest point in nearly a decade. Consumers’ grimmer outlook was driven by increasing concerns about inflation, in particular rising gas and food prices. Expectations have now fallen well below a reading of 80, suggesting weaker growth in the second half of 2022 as well as growing risk of recession by yearend.”

The one bright spot is that the present situation (which is how things actually are) is holding up. The other bright spot is that consumers are more pessimistic about the overall economy than they are about their personal financial situations.

Times are still good for landlords as the CoreLogic Single Family Rent Index rose 14% YOY in April. Some numbers are absolutely staggering: Miami was up 41% on a YOY basis. Orlando was up 26%. The downside is that these numbers will almost certainly add to inflationary pressures going forward.

38 Responses

  1. Worth noting on the SCOTUS decision on guns in New York

    “The Supreme Court’s gun ruling was a victory over racist policing
    By Aimee Carlisle, Christopher Smith and Michael Alexander Thomas

    June 28, 2022 at 8:11 a.m. EDT”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/28/supreme-court-new-york-guns-racist-policing/

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  2. Today’s gonna be the day that the J6 show blows the lid off the ratings!

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    • Watch the SCOTUS upstage them by releasing the West Virginia ruling.

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      • Next announcement day is Wednesday, so I don’t think that’ll do it. I do have a strong suspicion that today’s hearing is an attempt to distract the base over their (Democratic Establishment) response to Roe v Wade. Apparantly that decision came out of the blue for them.

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  3. No way this could backfire:

    “Democrats’ big bets on GOP primaries come due: What to watch in Tuesday’s elections

    A number of House incumbents are in danger in Tuesday’s primaries, which also feature must-watch statewide races in Colorado, Illinois and New York.
    JB Pritzker listens to speakers during a transgender support rally.

    By Steven Shepard
    06/28/2022 04:31 AM EDT

    Democrats have a lot riding on Tuesday’s primaries. The Republican primaries, that is.

    Facing hurricane-force electoral headwinds in November, Democrats have launched an unprecedented effort to meddle in GOP nominating contests across the country, elevating extreme candidates and attacking Republican hopefuls they view as greater threats in the general election.”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/democrats-big-bets-on-gop-primaries-come-due-what-to-watch-in-tuesdays-elections-00042738

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  4. A contrary view to the whirlwind unleashed take on Dobbs.

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/28/democrats-abortion-views-are-far-too-radical-to-benefit-from-the-post-roe-political-reality/

    Polls show that voters are dramatically more worried about the economy than focused on abortion. Traditionally, those who care the most about abortion tend to vote for Republicans. Even if Budd had an extreme pro-life position, and he doesn’t, the issue would probably break 50-50 in the southern state, rather than be a huge boon for Beasley.

    At a time Democrats desperately need to seem normal, they are saddled with one of the least defensible policy positions in American life: that ending human life in the womb should be legal for any reason up until the moment the baby is being born.

    The signature legislation nearly all of them voted for weeks ago would have forbidden state-level protections for babies with Down syndrome or other disabilities, overturned informed consent laws that have been upheld by the Supreme Court, prohibited state restrictions blocking abortion when the unborn child can feel pain, and completely removed conscientious protections for health-care employees who oppose abortion. This is an extremely radical set of positions. For instance, 75 percent of Americans support protecting the conscience rights of health-care employees. And seven out of ten Americans oppose aborting children because they have Down syndrome.

    It’s also not just that Democrats have to affirmatively support that view but that they will also be saddled with the policy position that any restriction, no matter how minor and no matter how popular, such as a 15-week abortion ban, is untenable.

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    • I think it’s going to take a week or two for the polling to settle out. Remember though how wildly out of whack the polling was in the last election, huge swaths of voters, mainly blue collar, are being missed.

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    • That would be the case if the Republicans could keep their own state legislators in line and out of the news.

      I think that Republicans had Democrats on the defensive with the old status quo, but that may well change now.

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  5. Latest from the Washington Post on the January 6th hearings:

    “Trump lunged for steering wheel, Secret Service agent in bid to reach Capitol, former aide testifies”

    “Former president Donald Trump was so “irate” that he wasn’t being driven to the Capitol following his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, that he attempted to grab the steering wheel of his limousine and lunged at a member of his Secret Service detail, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in a House hearing Tuesday, citing the account of a senior-ranking colleague.

    “I’m the f-ing president! Take me up to the Capitol now!” Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, quoted Trump as saying in testimony to the House select committee. She also described an outburst by Trump at his former attorney general in which he threw dishes, leaving ketchup streaming down the wall.”

    Trump is starting to sound like the Duke from Escape from New York.

    “The Duke : They sent in their best man, and when we roll across the 69th Street bridge tomorrow, on our way to freedom, we’re going to have their best man leading the way – from the neck up!

    [cheering erupts]

    The Duke : On the hood of my car!”

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082340/characters/nm0005002

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    • Could be true but it reads as too good to check. She’s repeating what she was told, not what she saw. All in all it seems a little to on the nose, like HRC throwing a lamp at Bill.

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      • so it is hearsay?

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        • Yes. The big “bombshell” is that there supposedly people in the crowd with AR-15’s. Somehow not a single picture of one was taken nor was anybody charged. Again, to good to check and a lot to on the nose.

          Really peeling the onion here.

          I forget, who again murdered Ashli Babbit?

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        • Also, Trump supposedly grabbed at the steering wheel when riding in the Beast, demanding he be taken to the Capital. It’s interesting to speculate how that was supposed to occur when the back seat of the Beast is at least 8-10 feet from the steering wheel. I also think it’s closed off from the driver/front seat. But whatever, why bother to check, it sounds “truthy”.

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        • It sounds made up and stupid, like something a bad writer would stick in their action movie about a crazy right wing president.

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        • I don’t believe a think out of the left anymore.

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        • And here we go:

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        • The committee’s not stupid, they’ll NEVER call anybody in a position to refute this.

          But how is today not a testament to how desperate they are.

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        • The committee’s not stupid, they’ll NEVER call anybody in a position to refute this.

          They are stupid enough to think people will believe Trump has 12 foot arms.

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        • I guarantee that the Progressive base absolutely does.

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        • This sort of stuff has the same problem the Russian collusion story had at the outset: it doesn’t pass the smell test. Even if by some miracle it was remotely true it still sounds like bullshit, but the people trumpeting and amplifying it are so insular and out of touch they can’t hear it. Anything their religious leaders proclaim about Orange Satan is holy writ, end of story.

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  6. Why though?

    What is the value of leaking this?

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    • He does not. WaPo writer isn’t great but I suppose he could have been worse. Although he seems to miss the point of Thomas’s termite comment.

      White progressives really hate Thomas for some reason.

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      • The WaPo writer was awful. Reads like an editorial at The Daily Cardinal when I was at the People’s Republic of Madison.

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        • that’s milloy for you. been reading him for years.
          he gets a lot of flack for being the DC metro columnist, but living in PG county. he typically writes about how he converted to veganism and is improved health.

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      • KW:

        White progressives really hate Thomas for some reason.

        I think it is because he had the audacity to escape the plantation.

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        • That and pretty much all the serious white racists are progressives. At least in the US.

          Of course my theory is the apex state of progressive racial essentialism is virulent racism almost indistinguishable from your average KKK Grand Wizard of a century past.

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  7. This is no shit, I heard Trump was personally handing out Howitzers after his speech!

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    • And telling them to make sure to murder the women and children first. Also that he was declaring himself king and would personally behead Pence by guillotine as soon as a gold-plated one could be made for him. ALL 100% TRUE!!!

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      • Because the left lives in a Hollywood-media bubble, it never dawns on them that their stories sound like fiction.

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