MARKET MOVERS
- Tesla raises prices amid surging costs. The increase comes as the car industry faces rapidly rising costs of labor, transportation, raw materials, and more. It also comes shortly after Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said he plans to cut 10% of its salaried workforce. The latest price increase applies to certain cars across Tesla’s entire lineup. The Model 3 long-range car is now going for $57,990.
- Fed promises an ‘unconditional’ approach to taking down inflation in a report to Congress. The central bank promised it would launch a full effort to bring down inflation pressures. That marks the Fed’s strongest statement yet, affirming its commitment to continue raising interest rates and otherwise tightening policy to solve the economy’s paramount issue. The statement did not elaborate on what “unconditional” means. Read more here.
- Mortgage rates hit 5.78%. The highest level since 2008. It stands to add to the pressure on U.S. home prices. Real estate makes up a significant portion of the U.S. economy, and it is particularly sensitive to interest rates. Higher mortgage rates can easily add hundreds of dollars to a buyer’s monthly payments. Mortgage rates are tied closely to the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which hit its highest level since 2011 this week. Read more here.
- U.S. housing starts plunge to a two-year low. Construction started on new U.S. homes fell 14.4% in May, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The annual rate of total housing starts fell to 1.55 million last month from a revised 1.81 million in April. The construction pace for single-family homes fell 9.2% in May, while apartment starts fell 26.8%.
- Crypto lender Babel halts withdrawals as the pain spreads. Babel Finance became the second major digital-asset lender this week to freeze withdrawals, telling clients it is facing “unusual liquidity pressures” as it contends with recent market declines. The news came just a few days after Celsius Network, another crypto lending platform, paused withdrawals.
- Industrial production looks slowdown-resistant right now. However, it's also one of the economic indicators that are currently holding up better than most other indicators, in what is otherwise a pretty clear cyclical downturn. Expect industrial production to probably be the more slowdown-resistant part of the economy in the 2020s decade, in contrast to the prior decade.
- Builders are slashing prices to sell homes in a fast-cooling US market. The fastest-rising mortgage rates in decades have cooled demand so abruptly in many hotspots. Builders that were artificially limiting sales and auctioning houses to the highest bidder now have inventory to move. The wait lists for new houses are gone. In the Phoenix metropolitan area, 22% of new-home listings had price cuts. In Tampa, it's 21%. Austin climbed to 13%.
- Revlon has declared bankruptcy. The New York-based cosmetics company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The cosmetics maker expects to receive $575 million in debtor-in-possession financing to support operations. One of the first major companies to do so amid a global slowdown in corporate default activity. Revlon may herald an uptick in the number of companies that default on their debts in the near future.
- Apple is betting big on sports. Apple TV+ recently inked exclusive global media rights to stream every MLS match. The move follows a deal with Major League Baseball to stream two regular-season games every Friday night this season. Apple is also the apparent front-runner for the NFL's Sunday Ticket package. Apple is spending billions on sports rights to fuel the growth of its streaming business. Read more here.
WHAT TO WATCH
- The bear market would end in October with the S&P 500 at 3,000, says BofA's Michael Hartnett. He says that history is no guide to future performance but if it were, today’s bear market would end on Oct 19, 2022 (35-year anniversary of Black Monday) with the S&P 500 at 3000. The peak to trough decline in a bear market has been 37.3% on average with a duration of 289 days. Read more here.
- Home sales will fall 13.5% this year, predicts Fannie Mae economists. While they expect the pace of housing starts to remain comparatively elevated in the near term reflecting the need to work through prior order backlogs, this suggests that construction will eventually soften as well. They forecast single-family housing starts to end the year about 15% lower than what occurred in the most recent reading for April.
- More brokerages will be forced to cut costs. The real estate industry is entering a period of heightened uncertainty with rising interest rates and falling transaction volumes, leading to a shrinking commission pool. With a limited ability to affect revenue, brokerages will be forced to cut costs -- and in this environment, brokerages with a more efficient cost structure like eXp have a distinct advantage.
- Elon wants to 4x Twitter to 1 billion. On Thursday, Elon took questions from Twitter employees at a company all-hands. He said that people who are “exceptional at their jobs” may work remotely, but that the priority should be working in person. Musk wants to 4x Twitter’s user base to 1 billion, and integrate payments into the app. Musk said he believes users should be able to say “pretty outrageous things” on the platform. Source(20:44)
