General World News

Welcome to Wall Street’s ‘Summer of Anxiety’

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Summary List Placement As summer comes to the United States, the coronavirus is receding, businesses are reopening, and people are going back to work. There are memes everywhere trying to encapsulate the elation of the season — “hot vax summer,” “the new Roaring 20s,” etc.  But on Wall Street, things are a bit darker. Among […]

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Americans have saved up to 70% of their latest stimulus checks, Bank of America’s CEO says, potentially leaving hundreds of billions unspent in checking accounts

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Summary List Placement Americans have collectively saved billions from the last two rounds of stimulus checks, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CBS in an interview on Sunday.  “Our consumers have lots of money in their checking accounts,” Moynihan told CBS. “They have not spent about 65-70% of the last couple of rounds of […]

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Mortgage applications are thinning as summer approaches

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For the third week in a row, mortgage applications decreased. Mortgage applications fell 3.1% in the week ending June 4, and refis took the biggest dip, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Most of the decline in mortgage rates came late last week, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declining to 3.15 […]

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4 million Americans quit their jobs in April — a 20-year record. Many of them worked in the retail sector, which is in the middle of a massive labor shortage.

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Summary List Placement Job vacancies rose to a 20 year-high in April, a Labor Department survey showed Tuesday.  The survey also showed that 4 million workers quit their jobs in April — another 20-year record. Job quits rose most in the retail sector and the professional and business services sector.  Companies were advertising 9.3 job […]

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Regions Bank places $1B bet on home renovation market

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Regions Bank is looking to make a big dent in the home improvement lending space, striking a deal to acquire EnerBank USA for $960 million in cash. EnerBank, a Utah-based subsidiary of publicly traded CMS Energy, has loan balances totaling $2.8 billion as of March 31, 2021 and is one of America’s largest specialized home […]

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Senate Democrats signal they’re ready to ditch GOP on infrastructure as White House turns to new bipartisan group

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Summary List Placement Senate Democrats are starting to signal they are prepared to ditch Republicans on infrastructure, as the Biden administration’s talks with the GOP collapsed without a deal after more than a month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats were preparing to use reconciliation, a tactic to approve certain bills with a simple […]

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Jeff Bezos reportedly didn’t pay any income taxes for at least 2 years between 2006 and 2018 (AMZN)

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Summary List Placement In 2007, and again in 2011, billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly paid nothing in federal income taxes. That’s according to confidential tax documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service obtained by ProPublica, which were revealed in a bombshell new report on some of the world’s wealthiest people. Bezos is currently listed […]

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Non-QM shop Angel Oak Mortgage prepares IPO

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It was barely a year ago that Angel Oak Mortgage and the rest of the non-QM lenders were holding on for dear life. Now, the Atlanta-based lender is looking to raise $165 million as part of an independent public offering. Angel Oak Mortgage, managed by parent company Angel Oak Capital and Falcon I, is looking […]

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Content specialist Neel Dhingra to speak at engage June 17

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Growing your personal brand is an important skill in a purchase market, which is why we’ve invited Neel Dhingra, a top producing manager at All Western Mortgage, to speak at HousingWire’s annual engage.marketing on June 17. Dhingra, who has grown his business through content marketing on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube along with The NeelHome […]

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Student-loan interest rates are increasing nearly a full percentage point starting in July, showing no end in sight to the debt crisis

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Summary List Placement Although the pause on student-loan payments, accompanied by zero interest accrual, is continuing through September, the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office announced new increased interest rates for the next year. It’s another sign that the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis, which President Joe Biden vowed to address in his campaign last year, […]

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A $15 minimum wage would cause fast-food chains to raise prices or put workers out of jobs, a former McDonald’s CEO said

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Summary List Placement The push for a $15 federal minimum wage could cause fast-food chains to raise prices or slash jobs by turning to automation instead, a former McDonald’s CEO said. McDonald’s last month announced it was raising minimum pay at corporate-owned stores across the US amid the current labor shortage, and said that it […]

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Servicers’ forbearance volume steadily falling

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Servicers’ forbearance portfolio volumes decreased again last week, falling two basis points to 4.16%, according to a survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Despite May 30 marking the 14th consecutive week of overall declines, a nearly equal number of forbearance exits and re-entries have left forbearance portfolio volumes essentially unaltered. Broken down by investor types, […]

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Biden estimates taxpayers are on the hook for $53 billion worth of student-loan losses from pandemic relief efforts

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Summary List Placement To provide pandemic relief to the 43 million borrowers in the country with federal student loans, President Joe Biden extended the pause on payments through September. His Education Department has even cancelled student debt for some groups of people. Now there’s a number on how much those efforts increased losses in the […]

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UWM goes on the offensive with price-match guarantee

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United Wholesale Mortgage has been aggressively price-cutting loans to put pressure on competitors for months now. It appears they’ve just thrown gas on the fire in the hopes of boosting their second quarter numbers, while hitting their rivals ahead of earnings call season. UWM said on Monday that they’ll price-match any conventional loan on primary […]

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G7 leaders reach ‘historic’ agreement to crack down on tech giants by forcing Amazon, Facebook, and others to pay more tax

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Summary List Placement Finance ministers for some of the world’s wealthiest nations have reached a “historic agreement” to tackle tax abuses by internet giants and to introduce a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent. “I am delighted to announce that today after years of discussion G7 finance ministers have reached a historic agreement […]

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25 states are moving to end unemployment benefits. 15 of them have lower than average vaccination rates.

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Summary List Placement Half of all states in America are ending their participation in federal unemployment benefits early, leaving millions of workers with greatly reduced benefits — or no benefits at all.  Twenty-three of these states are still below pre-pandemic employment, while 15 have lower than average vaccination rates. That means that workers being pushed […]

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How big-city suburbs won the 2020 migration boom

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Summary List Placement 2020 was the year urbanites took flight. But many of them didn’t go very far. The pandemic’s great migration boom mostly consisted of urban dwellers leaving big cities for its directly outlying suburbs, according to a recent Jefferies note that analyzed the latest USPS data. “Large central metro” areas like New York […]

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Bill Dallas to speak at engage.marketing on June 17

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Bill Dallas, president of Finance of America Mortgage, will speak at engage.marketing on the panel: Winning in a red-hot purchase market. Dallas is a mortgage industry veteran, building two mortgage companies from the ground up: First Franklin and Ownit Mortgage Solutions, starting in 1981. In 2009, Dallas purchased Skyline Home Loans with Upfront Ventures and […]

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May’s job report shows hard-hit industries are still below pre-pandemic employment

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Summary List Placement Industries hit hard by the pandemic, including accommodation, museums, and performing arts, are still far below pre-pandemic employment. Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed, told Insider that some of the industries that have the highest percent declines from February 2020 employment to May 2021, are “industries that just aren’t going to […]

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Women’s employment is moving in the right direction, but it hasn’t turned a corner yet

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Summary List Placement Throughout the pandemic, the story of unemployment has been a roller coaster, taking myriad twists and turns. March’s jobs report brought new highs, and April brought disappointing lows. May’s jobs report falls somewhere in between, coming in below expectations but still showing acceleration as unemployment dipped. One group, however, has been disproportionately […]

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The GOP said enhanced unemployment benefits were stopping folks from taking jobs. The US saw sharp payroll growth last month anyway.

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Summary List Placement Republicans in 25 states are cutting enhanced unemployment benefits early under the argument that the additional measures discourage people from re-entering the workforce. But the May jobs report released on Friday, which saw 559,000 payrolls added — a sharp increase from April — and a bigger-than-expected drop in the unemployment rate, suggests […]

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A ‘megadrought’ in California is expected to lead to water shortages for production of everything from avocados to almonds, and could cause prices to rise

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Summary List Placement A megadrought in California is threatening to push food prices even higher. The state is already facing its worst water shortage in four years and the its driest season has only just begun, according to data from the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).  As water levels continue to fall, farmers and […]

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House Democrats propose an additional $547 billion for roads and bridges as infrastructure stalemate continues

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Summary List Placement As President Joe Biden continues his effort to reach a bipartisan agreement on his infrastructure proposal, House Democrats have proposed additional funding for rebuilding the country’s physical infrastructure — an area Republicans have argued doesn’t have enough focus. On Friday, Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio, Chair […]

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4 in 5 local pharmacies can’t find enough workers to deliver prescriptions and run the cash register, according to an industry report

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Summary List Placement Local pharmacies in the US are scrambling to find workers amid the labor shortage hitting industries, according to the country’s largest organization of independent pharmacy owners. Four in five pharmacies are struggling to recruit enough workers to deliver prescriptions, handle patients, and run the cash register, according to a report by the […]

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Ally Bank is eliminating overdraft fees, which disproportionately affect poor households and people of color (ALLY)

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Summary List Placement Ally Bank, the largest digital bank in the US, announced Wednesday that it would eliminate overdraft fees on all accounts. All Ally customers are eligible and “there are no requirements or restrictions,” the firm said in a press release.  “This is a significant advancement for consumers as we live out our mission […]

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Jen Psaki downplays the prospect of a 4th stimulus check, saying Biden has already proposed his best economic recovery plan

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Summary List Placement The White House downplayed the prospect of a fourth stimulus payment on Thursday, saying that President Joe Biden has already unveiled what he believes is his best possible economic recovery plan. “He’s happy to hear from a range of ideas on what would be most effective and what’s most important to the […]

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Profit margin decline suggests mortgage bonanza is waning

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Independent mortgage banks (IMB) and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks saw an average net profit of $3,361 on each loan they originated in the first quarter of 2021, down from a reported gain of $3,738 per loan in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average pre-tax […]

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Mortgage rates rise but stay sub-3%

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Fickle mortgage rates rose once again last week, this time four basis points to an average of 2.99%, according to Thursday data from Freddie Mac‘s PMMS. However, despite fluctuating sub-3% mortgage rates, borrowers are still competing in a supply strained and overheated market. “Home prices continue to accelerate while inventory remains low and new home construction cannot […]

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Businesses are struggling to find workers and experts are raising the alarm over a ‘labor shortage.’ But there are clear reasons to think the job crunch is only a short-term problem.

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Summary List Placement Until recently, enthusiasm was building in the economic recovery. But a series of dark clouds have come together all at once to darken the outlook for the US economy and they all point to one thing: inflation.  The most hotly debated topic is the question of the labor market. The weak April […]

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US weekly jobless claims tumble to new pandemic-era low of 385,000

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Summary List Placement The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance sank to another pandemic-era low last week as the labor market’s recovery charged forward. Jobless claims totaled an unadjusted 385,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for 387,000 initial claims. The count marks a […]