The Biden administration is preparing to raise tariffs on clean-energy goods from China in the coming days, with the levy on Chinese electric vehicles set to roughly quadruple.
Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates climbed for most of 2023, at one point reaching nearly 8%—a level not seen in two decades before dropping closer to 6.5%. In 2024, after falling a bit in early March, mortgage rates are now back above 7%.
Strong EPS
Earnings per share for companies in the S&P 500 now look to be up 5.2% from a year earlier, better than the 3.4% analysts expected at the end of March, and marking the strongest growth in nearly two years.
Midtown Office
The downtown Manhattan availability rate—which includes vacancy and space coming on the market in the next 12 months—increased to 21.3% in the first quarter, compared with 10.3% in early 2020. Average asking rents have fallen to about $57 a square foot from more than $65.
Labor Market
Job growth slowed and unemployment ticked higher last month, marking a break from a string of data showing surprising strength in the labor market.
Employment Data
The length of the average workweek fell last month, to 34.3 from 34.4. The underemployment rate, which includes the unemployed and those marginally attached to the workforce, rose to 7.4%.
Retail Multifamily
As more retail activity goes online with Ecommerce and given the fact that the U.S. is over retailed, mall owners/developers are looking for ways to revitalize and monetize their real estate by adding multifamily to create a mixed-use environment. One of the main drivers of this effort is parking reduction, as developers and retailers have come to the realization that most shopping centers are over parked.
April Markets
It was a notably ugly April for the major averages, with the Dow losing 5% for its worst monthly performance since September 2022. The S&P 500 slid about 4.2% this month, and the Nasdaq lost 4.4%. The three major averages snapped five-month winning streaks.
Home Investors
Investors of all sizes spent billions of dollars buying homes during the pandemic. At the 2022 peak, they bought more than one in every four single-family homes sold, though more recently their activity has slowed as interest rates rose and supply became tighter.
Hotel Construction
According to the latest report of the U.S. hotel construction pipeline trend report, there are 6,065 projects with 702,990 rooms in the pipeline, representing a 9% YOY and 7% YOY increase in projects and rooms, respectively. Across the country, there are 1,144 projects comprising 141,336 rooms under construction, marking a 9% increase in projects and a 1% increase in rooms YOY.