Author: Money Mechanics

Positive developments in US-China trade talks over the weekend provided a boost to risk assets, including large parts of the commodities complex Energy – US-China Trade Tensions Thaw Following the sanction-driven rally in oil late last week, the market got another boost from the improved tone in trade talks between the US and China. Over the weekend, indications were that the truce would be extended. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the additional 100% tariff threat is “effectively off the table,” China is expected to delay export controls on rare earths. The announcement of these controls essentially triggered the…

Nationwide, there are an estimated 37% more sellers than buyers—a near-record gap that’s giving buyers across the country negotiating power. There are seven metros where sellers outnumber buyers by at least 2-to-1, and all but one are in Texas or Florida.  There are five remaining seller’s markets, the strongest of which is Newark, NJ. Sale prices are up 1.3% year over year in buyer’s markets versus a 3.8% gain in seller’s markets. It’s a buyer’s market—for those who can afford to buy.  America had an estimated 36.7% more home sellers than buyers in September, meaning many of the buyers who…

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) is one of the Trending AI Stocks on Wall Street’s Radar. On October 22, Piper Sandler initiated the stock as “Overweight” and a $172 price target. The firm believes that Dell’s opportunities are “strong.” According to analysts at Piper Sandler, Dell should be one of the “primary beneficiaries” of a robust enterprise data center refresh, which “looks particularly strong for 2026.” It also pinpointed the AI infrastructure buildout and the forthcoming Windows 10 end-of-life as additional catalysts, stating that “~50% of units still need to be refreshed.” With shares “up ~3.5x since November 2022,” Dell is now viewed…

Jamaica’s $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric World Bank catastrophe bond has been marked down on secondary pricing sheets and the US National Hurricane Center forecast cone still shows a major hurricane Melissa landfall.This article was originally published on October 25th. Melissa became a hurricane on Saturday evening UK time and rapidly intensified into a major hurricane on Sunday. Our latest updates are at the foot of this article, here. Original article begins: The forecast as of Saturday morning October 25th, sees the NHC’s forecast cone centred on the island nation of Jamaica, with the current forecast indicating a…

The majority of would-be homebuyers expect mortgage rates to continue their recent decline, and it’s one of the main reasons why they’re waiting to make a purchase, according to the findings of a new CNBC Housing Market Survey.Rates have been creeping down over the last few months and are hovering around the lowest level in a year, with the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed loan now sitting at 6.17%, according to Mortgage News Daily. But nearly three-quarters of real estate agents surveyed by CNBC said most of their buyers think rates will come down further.”My biggest challenge is…

ZDNET’s key takeaways The latest smart glasses are available for $379 in various styles and lens options. They feature 3K video recording and longer battery life. It’s the same design as the first-gen, with the same arsenal of Meta AI tools. more buying choices Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.Recently, I’ve been documenting more of my life with the Meta Ray-Bans than with my phone. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m not shoving a camera in front of friends and family, or perhaps they’re not catching the pulsing white indicator whenever I hit the record button on the…

(Oil Price)– The supertanker freight futures surged on Thursday and Friday after the U.S. sanctions against Russia’s biggest oil firms created a rush to replace Russian barrels. The front-month supertanker contracts on the route Middle East to China, the benchmark route, jumped by 16% on Thursday, to the highest level in nearly two years, according to data from the Baltic Exchange data cited by Bloomberg. “We anticipate the rush for replacement crudes will be larger and more sustained because of the exhaustive list of Russian producers under OFAC sanctions,” Anoop Singh, global head of shipping research at Oil Brokerage, told Bloomberg.…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer chaired a panel reviewing post-18 education and funding for the May governmentAn English education was once globally renowned — albeit more for elite high flyers than for other people. Our current system, while containing world-class universities, has long failed those who do not take the academic route. Now, and at last, a government has laid out a plan to put this right — improving the existing system without needlessly ripping up the work of prior administrations. This is how government is…

Only the wealthy will benefit from ZIRP, and the benefits of “the wealth effect” and “trickle down” have not just diminished–they’re now negative. Welcome to the era of ZAP. A correspondent suggested I consider the possibility that the powers that be will respond to a weakening of the economy by pushing toward zero, reinstating ZIRP–Zero Interest Rate Policy. The purpose of ZIRP is to reduce the costs of borrowing money as the means of goosing borrowing-and-spending and inflating another credit-asset bubble, a.k.a. “the wealth effect,” the Federal Reserve’s tried-and-true means of goosing the spending of the top 10% by making…

We need to consider those factors as we look at last week’s data. Pending home sales did rebound last week, but not to the exact level that the data seems to show. The same holds true for our new listings data and inventory data. Let’s take a look. Weekly pending sales Last week’s existing home sales report showed another year-over-year increase in demand, up 4.1%.This is something I talked about many months ago: if the sales trend stays flat around 4 million — given the low bar in 2025 — we should see growth for many months. The months of…