Market News

The 3,000-room casino hotel that changed Las Vegas when it opened in 1989 will close on July 17.

The Sahm rule, a rule of thumb popularized by economist Claudia Sahm, says that if the average of the unemployment rate over three months rises a half-percentage point or more above the lowest the three-month average went over the previous year, the economy is in a recession. Over the past three months, the unemployment rate has averaged 4%—0.4 percentage point above the three-month average low of 3.6% over the past year.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he was pleased with how inflation had resumed a downtrend following a rebound at the start of the year, a sign the central bank might be able to lower interest rates by the end of the summer even though he declined to endorse such a move.

Investors will redeem $16.5 billion from real-estate funds this year, compared with $1.5 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, new fundraising is expected to dwindle to $5.7 billion this year, compared with $34 billion in the funds’ peak year of 2021.

Two-thirds of outstanding U.S. mortgages have a rate below 4%. Were these homeowners to move, they would have to pay close to 7% for a new 30-year mortgage. The gap hasn’t been as wide since at least the late 1980s.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. national home price index, which controls for changes in the mix of homes, is up 51% since the end of 2019.

Many less-efficient vessels were scrapped, and there will be slow growth in 2026 and 2027 as the absence of industry orders during the height of the pandemic works its way through specialized shipyards.

Americans have poured money into cash-like investments since the Fed began raising interest rates, driving assets in money-market funds to a record $6.12 trillion earlier this month.

Brookfield Property Partners spent billions in 2018 to assume full ownership of mall-owner GGP when malls were out of favor on Wall Street. Executives at the firm defended this contrarian bet in part by saying that they would turn most of the company’s 125 malls into minicities with residences, offices or hotels as well as stores. Six years later, only two malls, in Atlanta and near Seattle, have been redeveloped in this way, with another two in North Carolina and Denver, in the pipeline.

The index of agency mortgage-backed securities, currently has a distribution yield of around 3.7%, according to FactSet. That is a reflection of the fact that after the pandemic boom of buying and refinancing, many people are still paying lower mortgage rates of around 3% or 4%.