Fed Rate Move Sends Dollar Higher – The New York Times
The move also helped propel the dollar’s recent rise even further, reaching $1.35 to the euro, its strongest level against that currency in nine months.
Barclays and Bank of America see looming oil crunch – Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
For oil markets, it as if the Great Recession never happened. Surging demand in China, India and the Middle East is making up for decline in the debt-crippled West, ensuring another global crunch within three or four years.
In D.C., more evidence that commercial real estate headed for foreclosure crisis – The Washington Post
The new round of financial pain, which some had anticipated but hoped to avoid, now seems all but certain. “There’s been an enormous bubble in commercial real estate, and it has to come down,” said Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, the watchdog created by Congress to monitor the financial bailout. “There will be significant bankruptcies among developers and significant failures among community banks.”
Violent Backlash Starting? – Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith
It does not take much in the way of powers of observation to see that anger against what we called “the Establishment” in the 1960s is rising. A good deal is correctly focused on how banks have looted the taxpayer; a lot of it is more inchoate but if anything even more virulent: anger about downward mobility, about the rising gap between the rich and everyone else.
Sacramento-area home sales were terrible in January – The Sacramento Bee
“I think people are just scared,” said Larry Henderson, a real estate agent with Prudential Norcal Realty in Carmichael. “I think they’re still afraid houses are going to go down.” He said his bigger fear, however, is that interest rates will climb to 6 percent this year and freeze out his clients who are first-time buyers.
Big Cheer Over Increase In Housing Starts Is “Much Ado About Nothing” – Mish
The housing recovery is supposedly on. Some think the latest stats are a sign of the pending recovery. I think it’s a failure to understand the data. Let’s take a look.
Core Inflation Declines for the first time since 1982 – Calculated Risk
Based on reports of falling rents – and a near record high apartment vacancy rate, OER will probably decline for some time, keeping core CPI low and possibly negative this year. Also – falling rents will push up the price-to-rent ratio, and put additional pressure on house prices.
Can Anybody Explain What the Stimulus Actually Did? - The Atlantic
The Recovery Act was designed to target economic production over job creation. Today quarterly GDP growth is 5.7%, and the unemployment rate is 9.7%. So, naturally, the stimulus being judged for its failure to create jobs rather than credited for boosting economic production. Why?
Relief For Businesses? Property Rents To Continue To Decline – Huffpo
Property rents for businesses will continue their downward fall this year, a bright spot for retailers facing a difficult economic environment, according to a recent report by Fitch Ratings.
Most retail properties have only seen 30 percent of their potential rent declines, according to the country’s third-biggest credit rating agency. Steep discounts loom ahead.
With consumers spending less, retailers’ sales are down.
“The inevitable outcome for these tenants is either store closings, or renegotiation of lower rental rates,” Fitch said in its most recent U.S. CMBS Market Trends report.
