Keeping up with the rapidly evolving algorithms and best practices of social channels is no easy feat for marketers. That’s why we’ve invited Chelsea Peitz, national director of social sales for Fidelity National Financial, to explain how she is leveraging Instagram and social platforms at engage.marketing on June 17. With thousands of followers on Instagram, Peitz […]
Summary List Placement As US employers struggle to find workers, some corporate leaders and politicians have blamed the federal expansion of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for a “labor shortage” and over 20 Republican governors have moved for its early cancelation. But new research suggests that enhanced UI may not be the reason jobs are going […]
Summary List Placement The Treasury Department has proposed at least a 15% global minimum tax rate for corporations in recent negotiations, The New York Times reports. Treasury officials told the Times that their proposal was met “enthusiastically;” it’s a lower rate than anticipated, but they told the paper that it marks a “pivotal moment” in […]
April’s 7.08% decline in mortgage delinquencies wasn’t even half of the drop March posted, but it did manage to push the national delinquency rate to below 5% for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, Black Knight revealed in a new report. Overall, the number of past-due mortgages fell to 4.66% in April […]
Summary List Placement Prospective buyers waiting for the housing market to cool down shouldn’t hold their breath. Home-price inflation will slow from last year’s peak of 11.4% but remain elevated as the market boom charges forward, according to economists surveyed by the Urban Land Institute in May. The estimates for average price growth in 2021 […]
Summary List Placement To ensure that taxes are not going uncollected, the Treasury Department announced on Thursday new measures to strengthen Internal Revenue Service enforcement. It estimated that its new plans will generate $700 billion over the next decade and help close the tax gap between what taxpayers owe and what they actually pay. Treasury […]
Summary List Placement The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance on Thursday: Vaccinated people can go without face masks in nearly every situation, marking a huge step in returning to pre-pandemic ways. But some states have more vaccinated residents than others, and they’re not quite ready to lift mask mandates until vaccination […]
Summary List Placement The chaos of COVID-19 has upended the global economy and although the road back to normality is opening up, it’s much like a middle-aged patient that has survived a heart attack – that road to recovery is going to be a long one. That’s the take of markets veteran Kit Juckes, who […]
After hovering below 3% for a month, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate popped back up six basis points to exactly 3% last week, according to Freddie Mac‘s PMMS. Mortgage rates climbed north of 3% over the first few months of 2021, but crested at 3.2% in March before descending again. Despite such a favorable rate […]
Summary List Placement The problem is that the US just doesn’t have enough homes. The solution might be too expensive for homebuilders’ liking. Home prices are growing at their fastest rate on record, and economists are attributing the tightness to simple economics: Where the rally that famously went bust in 2008 was fueled by risky […]
Summary List Placement The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance fell again last week as reopening spurred more hiring. New jobless claims totaled an unadjusted 444,000 last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday morning. The median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a modest jump to 450,000 claims. The reading marked a […]
Summary List Placement It was the winter of 2010 and Mark Zuckerberg was in a hurry. A few months earlier, 40 of America’s richest families had signed the Giving Pledge, a public promise initiated by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to give at least half of their wealth to charitable causes. Death was […]
Summary List Placement Students of color bear a significant burden of the country’s $1.7 trillion student debt crisis, and today, a major technology company announced an investment to help lift the burden off of those students. The Student Freedom Initiative — a nonprofit dedicated to helping students at minority serving institutions (MSIs) — announced a […]
Summary List Placement Gun and ammunition sales are surging as the country begins to reopen from the pandemic. In 2020, the FBI processed a record 39.7 million firearm background checks — the most of any year since the agency started recording the data. This year, data indicates there could be another record set, with firearm […]
A full month of sub-3% mortgage rates, ongoing housing market supply constraints, and a 300% increase in lumber prices over the past 15 months has prompted Fannie Mae‘s Economic and Strategic Group to revise several of its 2021 forecasts. March’s existing home sales report perfectly illustrated the country’s core housing market issues – a decade […]
Summary List Placement Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia suggested redirecting federal funds from President Joe Biden’s stimulus law to finance an infrastructure package. “I think there’s all kinds of different ways that we’re looking at. Certainly repurposing some of those covid dollars,” she told Bloomberg. “I’ve been looking at those 21 states […]
Summary List Placement Supply for homes can’t keep up with demand. At a point when the country badly needs more houses, housing starts fell 9.5% in April, and Goldman Sachs doesn’t see the cavalry arriving soon. A May 2 note from Goldman’s Ronnie Walker found that new home sales and housing starts have reached their […]
Social media is constantly evolving, with new platforms and algorithms challenging models and strategies just when businesses have gotten into a rhythm. That’s why we’ve asked LinkedIn Business Coach Judi Fox to speak at engage.marketing on June 17. Fox, who led a highly rated social session at last year’s engage event, will update attendees on […]
Summary List Placement The nationwide shortage of new homes lifted selling prices at their fastest-ever rate earlier this year. Now rent prices are following suit. The cost of renting a single-family home in the US rose 4.3% year-over-year in March, CoreLogic said in a Tuesday release. That’s up from 3% in March 2020 and places […]
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” — Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789. Thankfully, after more than a year with innumerable challenges, it appears that the pandemic will end. From an […]
Summary List Placement After a group of Republican senators met with President Joe Biden last week to discuss their $568 billion counter-proposal to the president’s infrastructure plan, he gave them a Tuesday deadline to bring forth a new offer. That never happened. Republican senators, led by West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, introduced the $568 […]
Mortgage applications increased for the second straight week, this time jumping 1.2% for the week ending May 14, 2021, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. All loan types hit their highest levels in two weeks. Mortgage rates were still lower than levels reported in late March and early April, providing additional […]
Summary List Placement UK inflation rose 1.5% in April compared to a year earlier as economy reopened and energy and clothing prices climbed, official figures showed Wednesday, an increase that was in line with economists’ expectations. The rise in the headline consumer price index inflation rate was up sharply up from 0.7% in March. When […]
As uncharted and bizarre as an app with dancing teenagers seems, TikTok has staked its claim on the home screen of millions. An app where trends live and die within a mere 24 hours is also teaching a younger generation how to change their oil, effectively bake a cake, and now, buy a home. While […]
Summary List Placement The assignment was a gimme. With house supply near record lows, demand strong, and prices surging to record highs, contractors simply needed to build more. Data out Tuesday suggests they aren’t rising to the occasion. That risks closing off the housing market to millennials just as they reach peak homebuying age. US […]
Summary List Placement As more GOP governors withdraw their states from federal unemployment benefits, millions of workers are poised to feel the blow of government aid ending early. Following April’s dismal jobs report — and anecdotes that workers were opting to remain on UI benefits rather than return to work — at least 22 states have […]
Summary List Placement Colonial Pipeline is having network issues preventing shippers from planning upcoming shipments of fuel, the company said on Tuesday, just after the system reopened after a week-long ransomware attack. Last week’s closure of the 5,500-mile (8,900-km) system was the most disruptive cyberattack on record, preventing millions of barrels of gasoline, diesel and jet […]
Summary List Placement Bank of America, one of the US’ largest banks, announced on Tuesday that it will be increasing its hourly minimum wage to $25 by 2025. “A core tenet of responsible growth is our commitment to being a great place to work which means investing in the people who serve our clients,” Sheri […]
Summary List Placement Now that the entirety of President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion infrastructure plan has been unveiled, his administration is canvassing for support. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was the most recent member of Biden’s administration to make the case. On Monday, Yellen delivered a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, which supports the interests […]
Summary List Placement Americans stopped moving around the 1980s, but that changed last year with remote work. A new Apartment List report that surveyed 5,000 Americans and analyzed US Census data has confirmed the migration narrative of 2020: Remote work ignited a residential migration rebound as the number of movers increased by 14% to 16% […]
A Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) report highlighted the perils of low-rates for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s single-family Credit Risk Transfers. Despite heightened investor uncertainty during the onset of the pandemic, GSE-backed mortgages have outperformed expectations, the report notes. Although markets experienced a significant liquidity disruption in March 2020, questions remain about the strength […]
Summary List Placement Texas is joining at least 19 other GOP-led states in ending its participation in federal unemployment benefits early. On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott told the Labor Department that the state was withdrawing from “further federal unemployment compensation related to the COVID-19 pandemic” effective June 26, which includes an additional $300 in weekly […]
Historically low mortgage rates had their moment in the sun in 2020. They rested far below 3% for months before America’s economic rebound pushed them back up in the winter of 2021. But data released on Thursday data from Freddie Mac showed that mortgage rates idled below 3% again for an entire month, even with […]
Summary List Placement BlackRock’s global fixed income chief investment officer, Rick Rieder, says the Fed should start tapering asset purchases “sooner rather than later.” In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Rieder said he believes the Fed has done “an incredible job” rescuing the American economy amidst a global pandemic but thinks it’s “time to […]
Summary List Placement In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) extended the eviction moratorium through June 30 to protect tenants who cannot keep up with rent payments during the pandemic. But an increasing number of courts are ruling the ban unconstitutional, and as the Biden administration works to keep them in place, […]
Summary List Placement Rent prices tumbled at the start of the pandemic and are only just now on the rise. But where inflation in other pockets of the economy is expected to cool off, rent might just keep climbing. The Federal Reserve, Biden administration officials, and much of Wall Street see elevated overall inflation eventually […]
With the economic expansion well underway, one big question remains: When will mortgage rates move toward 4% and higher? Mortgage rates increased toward 3.25% in mid-February from the recent all-time lows of 2.625% at the start of the year, but then retracted to around 3.0% currently. The bond market in 2021 has been above 1.60% for […]
Summary List Placement With the pandemic-era ability to work from home, the desire for homeownership has been on the rise this past year, with a housing inventory crisis developing as a result. But the Indianapolis Star reported last week that Black homeowners who want to put their houses on the market or seek lower mortgage […]
One of the great questions facing the housing markets in 2021 is what will happen when the mortgage forbearance programs under the CARES Act expire. When this act was originally passed on March 27, 2020, there were notable concerns that these measures would merely postpone an inevitable correction in the housing market once the programs […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden faces a steep uphill battle to pass his infrastructure bill. Republicans have balked at its $2.3 trillion price tag, and moderate Democrats aren’t entirely sold on its necessity. The president has held bipartisan meetings to iron out disagreements, but Democrats’ soft deadline of a July 4-passage remains ambitious. Morgan […]
Summary List Placement The Biden administration announced Monday it is kickstarting the first advanced payments of the child tax credit on July 15. Democrats have touted it as a key part of President Joe Biden’s stimulus law and it’s poised to benefit the vast majority of American children. The Treasury Department and IRS announced they […]
On May 13, FHFA Director Mark Calabria wrote an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal defending the final “living wills” rule published in the Federal Register on May 4. The key to this op-ed is understanding what was left out. His clear disdain for the structure of the GSEs as well as their ability […]
Summary List Placement Modern Monetary Theory economists are the trailblazing left-wingers in the field. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says he’s farther left than them. Both schools are inspired by the great 2oth-century English economist John Maynard Keynes, whose theory of fiscal stimulus influenced not only FDR’s response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, but […]
Summary List Placement The Biden administration is funneling more than $2 billion toward the care of migrant children by and along the southern border, Politico reported. That money had originally been earmarked to go toward various measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, according to Politico. The Department of Health and Human Services said $850 million […]
Summary List Placement When you trim away all the complications and high-minded theories, the single mission statement of an economy under capitalism is to grow. We say an economy is healthy when it’s adding jobs, productivity, and profits, and we say an economy is sick when it’s contracting, losing jobs, and failing to hit profitability […]