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That our people should live in their own homes is a sentiment deep in the heart of our race and of American life,” said President Herbert Hoover, perhaps the most important advocate of mass homeownership in the country’s history, in 1931. “They never sing songs about a pile of rent receipts.” But a ballad about the rental market is overdue. When rich-world interest rates began to surge in 2022, renting became a better deal than buying. House prices have since stagnated or slumped in many places, and rates are falling. Even so, there is reason to think that the winning...

Well, Donald Trump has done it again! He stumped the chumps. The "chumps" in this case were the "blue-chip" academic and financial economists whose consensus forecast this time last year was of high inflation and low economic growth. Wrong on both counts. As you've probably heard, the GDP growth for Q3 came in at a red-hot 4.3%, following 3.5% for the second quarter. Some 90% of professional economists got it wrong -- all underestimating the strength of the Trump economy. QED: These weren't random errors. These were "hate Trump" errors. They also predicted inflation of above 3% for 2025. It's...

The weekly mortgage rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.18 percent for the week ending Dec. 24 as the housing market continues to lean in favor of buyers.The 6.18 percent rate is the lowest level since 2022 and a slight decline from 6.21 percent the previous week, according to Freddie Mac data. The current rate is 0.86 percentage points below the yearly peak of 7.04 percent reached in mid-January.The recent rate decline comes as the U.S. housing market registered 37.2 percent more sellers than buyers in November, real estate brokerage Redfin said in a statement on Dec. 23.“That’s...

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced its third interest rate cut of the year as policymakers moved forward with the cut to support the labor market despite elevated inflation. Fed policymakers voted to lower the benchmark federal funds rate by 25 basis points to a new range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The move follows rate cuts of that size in September and October, which were the first of the year. Policymakers have been tracking economic data showing a slowdown in the labor market in recent months as companies adjust to shifts in trade and immigration policy. Meanwhile, inflation has trended...

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said Friday he expects the central bank can lower its key interest rate from here as labor market weakness poses a bigger economic threat than higher inflation. With divisions in the central bank running high over the future of rates, Williams took the side of the doves who still see policy as a bit restrictive when it comes to economic growth. “I view monetary policy as being modestly restrictive, although somewhat less so than before our recent actions,” he said in remarks for a speech in Santiago, Chile. “Therefore, I still see room...

Kevin Hincks reporting from the ‪@CboeGlobalMarkets‬ breaks down a pair of economic data prints that aren't impacted by the government shutdown. He shares the details on the ADP Employment Report and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications. Kevin looks at a few earnings movers ahead of Wednesday's open calling McDonald's (MCD) move "impressive" and an important indicator of consumer behavior. ADP Payrolls Rise, Mortgage Rates Stall and "Impressive" MCD Earnings | 6:03 Schwab Network | 240K subscribers | 1,405 views | November 5, 2025

Federal Reserve officials voted for another quarter-point rate cut on Wednesday, lowering their benchmark lending rate to a range between 3.75% and 4%, the lowest in three years. The decision drew two dissents; one from Fed Governor Stephen Miran, who backed a larger, half-point cut; and another from Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, who preferred to hold borrowing costs steady. It is the first time since 2019 that there were dueling dissents — both calling for easier and tighter policy — underscoring the heated debate among officials over how President Donald Trump’s sweeping policies on trade, immigration and spending...

U.S. investors are sitting on a pile of cash. Even with rates now coming down, many are in no rush to move it. Assets in money-market funds reached a record $7.7 trillion last week, with more than $60 billion flowing into those funds during the first four days of the month, according to Crane Data, an industry researcher. The latest rush into money funds began in 2022, when the Federal Reserve started raising rates. The yields on these funds, which typically hold short-term government debt, also rose, giving investors higher returns on their cash than they have had in years....

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a widely anticipated rate cut and signaled that two more are on the way before the end of the year as concerns intensified over the U.S. labor market even as inflation is still in the air. In an 11-to-1 vote signaling less dissent than Wall Street had anticipated, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point. The decision puts the overnight funds rate in a range between 4.00%-4.25%. Newly installed Governor Stephen Miran was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating...

Perhaps the only thing that might stop the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates in a few weeks would be a surprisingly strong U.S. jobs report. Just don’t count on it. Hiring has slowed sharply since the spring after the Trump administration launched the biggest trade wars in decades. Even with those trade disputes dying down, businesses have been slow to add new employees. The U.S. economy added an average of only 35,000 new jobs from May through July, marking the smallest three-month increase since the pandemic in 2020. Wall Street isn’t expecting a big uptick in August, either. A...

The job market is on such shaky ground that the Federal Reserve may soon need to cut interest rates to support the economy, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Friday at a key central banking forum. In one of his most consequential speeches, Powell suggested the labor market could benefit from lower rates, which the Fed has kept unchanged for eight straight months. “Downside risks to employment are rising,” Powell said in prepared remarks for his keynote speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He said the possibility of Trump’s tariffs having...

Markets had been nearly certain the Fed would cut rates in September, but fresh producer price data are weakening those odds ahead of Chair Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech. While investors still see an 85% chance of a cut, Bank of America now expects rates to hold, warning tariffs and sticky inflation could keep policy tighter for longer. Analysts will be eyeing the back end of this week for the market-moving news. Analysts have long priced in a number of cuts to the base rate in 2025. With just a handful of meetings left to go this year, September has...

NEW YORK (AP) — A top official at the Federal Reserve said Saturday that this month’s stunning, weaker-than-expected report on the U.S. job market is strengthening her belief that interest rates should be lower. Michelle Bowman was one of two Fed officials who voted a week and a half ago in favor of cutting interest rates. Such a move could help boost the economy by making it cheaper for people to borrow money to buy a house or a car, but it could also threaten to push inflation higher. Bowman and a fellow dissenter lost out after nine other Fed...

What is the likelihood that the Fed will change the Federal target rate at upcoming FOMC meetings, according to interest rate traders? Use CME FedWatch to track the probabilities of changes to the Fed rate, as implied by 30-Day Fed Funds futures prices.

The two Federal Reserve governors who dissented from the central bank’s decision to hold interest rates steady this week said they did so, in part, because they worried about the health of the labor market. “While the labor market looks fine on the surface, once we account for expected data revisions, private-sector payroll growth is near stall speed,” Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said in a statement posted on the central bank’s website.

In a rare Presidential visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters, President Donald Trump publicly pressed Fed Chair Jerome Powell to deliver sharp interest rate cuts while criticizing the central bank's $2.5 billion renovation project. What Happened: On Thursday, Trump once again pushed for a rate cut, saying, “I’d love him to lower interest rates,” while standing next to Powell during a tour of the Fed’s headquarters, which is currently under renovation, according to a Reuters report. This visit comes just days before the Fed's rate-setting committee meeting, where the central bank’s 19 policy-makers are widely expected to hold benchmark interest...

There are several reasons why Jerome Powell should be fired or forced to resign:Powell pretends he cares about budget deficits and inflation, but the cost for the Federal Reserve building renovations surged $700 million past the initial budget, or almost 40%:The Federal Reserve has defended itself from White House criticism that ongoing, costly renovations at the central bank’s headquarters in Washington are the result of mismanagement.Last week, Russel Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said the Fed was turning its headquarters into a ‘palace.’ The cost of the renovation has risen to $2.5 billion,...

Russia has more potential agricultural area than anywhere else in the world but it has run out of potatoes and onions. Even President Vladimir Putin conceded there is a problem. "It turns out we are short of potatoes," he recently said, noting the lack of sugar beet and some other vegetables too. That came after the price of potatoes soared in Russian shops, almost tripling within the last year, according to official figures. Meanwhile the price of onions has doubled. Cabbage is now 50% more expensive than it was a year ago, says statistics agency Rosstat. Russians had to pay...

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would have eased monetary policy by now if not for President Donald Trump’s tariff plan.When asked during a panel if the Fed would have lowered rates again this year had Trump not announced his controversial plan to impose higher levies on imported goods earlier this year, Powell said, “I think that’s right.” “In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,” Powell said at European...

I have been saying this for a while now, but I think the Federal Reserve is fighting a mythical “boogeyman” that doesn’t exist. According to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed wants “greater confidence” that inflation is cooling. And not just in headline numbers, but in core services and housing, where inflation has remained stubbornly sticky. So, the Fed’s decision to hold key interest rates steady last week was no surprise. And it wasn’t a shock either to learn that they are still in “wait-and-see” mode. But as I mentioned in a Market 360 article last week, I think they’re...