Home Sales May Drop 25%

MARKET MOVERS

Investors are selling corporate and household bonds. They’re gobbling up stocks. roughly $20 billion last week moved out of both investment-grade and high-yield bonds, which cover the debt of companies and households, according to Bank of America data. On the flip side, $25 billion went into equities last week. The big driver of the exit from credit is the Federal Reserve, which expects 7 rate hikes.

Alphabet’s quantum tech group Sandbox spins off into an independent company. It will be led by CEO Jack Hidary. The company, which has already gained a number of high-profile investors and clients, is pursuing enterprise software that at least partially uses quantum tech. Investors include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Breyer Capital, TIME Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. Schmidt is taking over as chairman of the board.

Koch Industries bets big on U.S. batteries. CEO Charles Koch has fought climate regulation but his company is now spreading investments across the U.S. battery supply chain. A Koch Industries unit has made at least 10 investments worth at least $750 million in the U.S. battery supply chain and electric vehicles in the past 18 months, regulatory filings, news releases, and FactSet data show. Read more here.

Skyrocketing home valuations exceeded the median income. Your home probably earned more than you did last year. That’s according to a March 18 report by Zillow. Home valuations exceeded the median income in a majority of American cities, as homes become more and more expensive across the country. Home value growth was higher than the median income workers in 25 of the 38 metropolitan areas studied.

Opendoor is going to have a blockbuster in Q2 2022. Opendoor set to cash in from record home price appreciation. Home price appreciation is through the roof again, and Opendoor's buy-to-list premium is at a record high. Opendoor's houses are currently listed for a median of 17% or $60k higher than what they were purchased for, on average, 72 days earlier. Read more here.

Google to make a bigger push into e-commerce. Google announced Last Mile Fleet Solutions, a set of tools designed to help merchants ensure that deliveries are fast, reliable, and low cost. The application helps fleet operators manage the delivery experience from order to doorstep, while also optimizing the shipment at every stage of the process. The solution is built atop the Google Maps Platform.
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Home sales may drop 25% by the end of summer. Ian Shepherdson of consulting firm Pantheon Macroeconomics is predicting a drop from the annual pace of 6.02 million set in February to a rate of 4.5 million by the end of summer. The most recent data on mortgage applications from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that the number of home loan applications is down more than 8% compared to a year ago. Read more here.

The all-electric Cadillac Lyriq is here. The company began retail production of its all-electric luxury crossover vehicle, the Cadillac Lyriq, on Monday and has targeted 25,000 Lyriqs for 2022. The Lyriq will help answer a lot of questions for investors and analysts. For starters, they want to know that GM can produce an EV on its so-called Ultium EV platform without any hiccups.
Buffett’s buying spree may continue. Analysts are optimistic that activity could continue, as there are at least two opportunities for BRK to deploy as much as $10 billion in cash in the next year. One analyst believes that Berkshire would be interested in buying the remaining 8.9% interest in Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and the conglomerate could increase its stake in Pilot Flying J next year.
SEC to vote on disclosures of emissions/climate risks. They will vote on mandatory disclosures of emissions and climate risks for public companies. The proposal would force public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions, the energy they consume, and energy coming into their power plant and where the emissions came from and to obtain independent certification of their estimates. Source(19:21)