Mortgage rates topped 7% this past week for the first time in 2024, according to Freddie Mac . The increase comes at a pivotal time for the U.S. housing market, which saw existing-home sales hit a near-30-year low in 2023 as costs rose. Higher rates could reduce buyer demand, slow price growth, further crimp sales,
Tax day is almost here, and, thanks to higher interest rates, many investors are finding they earned a lot more income from their portfolios in 2023—and now they owe the government a piece of it. “That’s a good thing,” says Mary Ellen Stanek, co-chief investment officer at Baird Asset Management. “But it means investors need
Egypt, the Middle Eastern giant with a population of 114 million, is too big to fail, particularly at this moment. The United Arab Emirates, International Monetary Fund, and European Union forcefully underlined this point over the past week, pledging some $40 billion in investments and loans. President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s government responded with drama
Assumable mortgages, or home loans that pass on their mortgage rate from a home seller to a buyer, are considered an attractive option these days: They effectively allow buyers to inherit a far lower interest rate at a time when mortgage rates are higher than 7%. And while these loans are relatively hard to find
Published: Feb. 29, 2024 at 5:23 p.m. ET Shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust FRT rose 2.21% to $100.85 Thursday, on what proved to be an all-around favorable trading session for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index SPX rising 0.52% to 5,096.27 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA rising 0.12% to 38,996.39.
SYDNEY–Australian mortgage stress and delinquencies will start to rise, even as the country’s cash rate is tipped to decline by the end of the year, Helia’s chief executive said. The lenders mortgage insurer expects the Reserve Bank of Australia cash rate to fall to 3.85% by the end of 2024 from 4.35% currently, it said
It might seem at times that investors care more about Jensen Huang than Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Huang is the longtime CEO of chip maker Nvidia Corp. NVDA , which stole the show last week by blowing away already lofty earnings expectations and leading stocks to new rounds of all-time highs, even as nagging
Two years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and global finance firms are still feeling the impact of the fallout, with many still scrambling to untangle their businesses from the region. The outlook for international finance giants in Russia remains on a knife-edge, as the country continues to face a host of challenges. These range
Published: Feb. 20, 2024 at 2:55 a.m. ET China made its biggest ever cut to mortgage rates on Tuesday, as the authorities try to support the struggling property sector, though the response from stock markets was muted. The People’s Bank of China said that the country’s lenders would reduce their five-year loan prime rate (LPR)
The Fed’s High Interest Rates Are Helping Pension Funds Close the Gap
This is commentary by Allan Sloan, an independent business journalist and seven-time winner of the Loeb Award, business journalism’s highest honor. We hear lots of talk about the problems that high interest rates have been causing since the Federal Reserve began jacking up rates two years ago. We also hear endless talk from people waiting