Census Bureau Revises Away 25% of Pandemic-Era Price Spike of New Single-Family Houses

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly produce the data on new single-family houses: permits, construction starts and completions, inventories at all stages of construction, sales at all stages of construction, median and average contract sales prices, and related data.

Whatever happened during the pandemic in collecting and processing the data, the Census Bureau and HUD decided that the pricing data was totally screwed up and needed to be fixed, and they dramatically revised the sales prices that had been collected during the pandemic.

And today, as part of this, they announced huge revisions to the pricing data going back through 2020. For example, they chopped off $36,000 from the median price at the peak in October 2022, taking it from the old $496,800 to the new-and-improved $460,300.

The ONLY Government-Sponsored Mineral Rush in American History

Dear reader,

The people of Paradox don’t want your pity.

This small town in Western Colorado is home to former uranium mining and mill workers and their children.

They’re dying of cancer and lung disease. They buried many loved ones over the years.

Some of them can barely breathe and depend on oxygen tanks.

It’s a common story in rural America today.

But when a public hearing was held on whether a former uranium mine was allowed to reopen near Paradox, the only critics were activists from outside of town.

The people of Paradox want to get back to work.

And after an 8-year ban on uranium mining in Colorado, a judge finally lifted the ban in 2019, which opened up 31 former mines.

Be Wary of a Promised 'Royal Flush'

By Joel Litman

Editor's note: Some management teams play elaborate games to try to win the public's approval. But according to Joel Litman – founder of our corporate affiliate Altimetry – all the good press can sometimes distract you from what's really going on beneath the surface.

In today's Weekend Edition, we're taking a break from our usual fare to share one of Joel's essays, updated from a May 2023 issue of the free Altimetry Daily Authority e-letter. In it, Joel explains how to look past the false signals – and expose potential red flags...

Only a madman could end the Vietnam War...

By 1969, the U.S. had been involved in Vietnam for nearly a decade and a half. The war was costly, bloody, and vastly unpopular. And when former President Richard Nixon took office that year, he desperately wanted an off-ramp.

Goldman Sachs Shines Up Its Swamp Creature Reputation by Rehiring Robert Kaplan as Vice Chairman – the Guy Who Traded Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin While President of the Dallas Fed

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 9, 2024

The swampiest trading house on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, issued a press release on Tuesday which was revolting – even to Wall Street veterans who are familiar with its scandalous history. (See Related Articles below.)

The press release stated that “Rob Kaplan will rejoin the firm as Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs and a member of the Management Committee. He will be a member of the Executive Office and will be based in Dallas.”

Robert (Rob) Kaplan is the man who scandalized the Dallas Fed and the Federal Reserve (the central bank of the United States) by flagrantly serving his own trading interests and violating financial reporting rules while trading like a hedge fund kingpin in S&P 500 futures for his own account during a declared National Emergency in 2020 (from the COVID-19 pandemic) while he was President of the Dallas Fed (one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks).

Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.60 Trillion from Peak, to $7.36 Trillion, Lowest since December 2020

by Wolf Richter • May 2, 2024

Quantitative Tightening has removed 38% of Treasury securities and 27% of MBS that pandemic QE had added.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Total assets on the Fed’s balance sheet fell by $77 billion in April, to $7.36 trillion, the lowest since December 2020, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet today. Since the end of QE in April 2022, the Fed has shed $1.60 trillion.

After months of talking about it, the Fed has now clarified officially when, how, and by how much it will slow QT. They’re trying to get the balance sheet down as far as possible without blowing anything up, and easy will do it, that’s the hope.

Starts in June

Cap for Treasury runoff reduced to $25 billion from $60 billion

Cap for MBS runoff unchanged at $35 billion