Perspective
BLS – TED: The Economics Daily – Union Membership Rates in each State, 2017 1/25
- “New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (23.8%), while South Carolina continued to have the lowest (2.6%).”
statista – The Countries Most Optimistic About 2018 – Niall McCarthy 1/22
Visual Capitalist – Visualizing a Global Shift in Wealth Over 10 Years – Jeff Desjardins 1/26
WSJ – Daily Shot: US Upward Mobility 1/26
Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice
A Wealth of Common Sense – Some Lessons For Living From Older Generations – Ben Carlson 1/25
Project Syndicate – Blockchain’s Broken Promises – Nouriel Roubini 1/26
WSJ – My 10-Year Odyssey Through America’s Housing Crisis – Ryan Dezember 1/26
Markets / Economy
Bloomberg – Worthless Auto Trade-Ins Signal Riskier Loans – Claire Boston 1/25
- “A growing share of the trade-ins that U.S. auto dealers and lenders accept for car-purchase financing are worthless on paper, a sign that banks and finance companies are making riskier loans to keep up revenue as vehicle sales slow.”
- “Almost a third of cars traded in last year were worth less than the loans that had been financing them, according to car-shopping website Edmunds. That’s up from about a quarter a decade earlier, said Edmunds, which looked at cars traded in as part of financing packages for new auto purchases in the U.S.”
- “Underwater trade-ins are just one example of the greater risks that lenders are taking now. New vehicle sales fell 1.8% to 17.2 million in 2017, but lending volume for new and used car purchases was on track to be higher than ever, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and consumer credit bureau Experian. The growth in the average amount financed for a new car outpaced median income growth between 2013 and 2016, Moody’s said, suggesting borrowers are getting more strained.”
- “Any pain from car-loan trouble will likely be just a shadow of the housing bubble collapse, because the auto debt market is much smaller. There were around $9 trillion of mortgages outstanding at the end of the third quarter, compared with $1.2 trillion of auto debt, the New York Fed said. And so far, many of the bonds backed by subprime auto loans are performing well thanks to built-in protections for investors. Wells Fargo analysts said in a note Wednesday that bonds issued by two of the biggest subprime auto lenders — Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. and General Motors Co.’s finance arm — have room to reach prices not seen since before the financial crisis.”
- “The higher percentage of underwater loans on trade-ins may be a sign that car owners are trading in their vehicles sooner than they had previously. A consumer is often the most underwater on his or her auto loan in the first few years of ownership, because the value of the vehicle drops fastest over that time.”
- “For borrowers who do trade in their underwater cars, lenders are essentially giving them the money to pay down their loan. The dealer sells the used car, and whatever balance remains on the old loan is folded into the new loan. The borrower might get a longer-term loan than he or she had before to help keep monthly payments manageable.”
Real Estate
- “Aspen REIT Inc. has been given approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a $33.5 million initial public offering allowing investors to buy shares in the luxury St. Regis Aspen Resort in Colorado.”
- “Upon closing of the IPO, Aspen REIT will be the first single-asset REIT to list on a national securities exchange in the U.S., according to the company.”
- “Aspen REIT is offering 1,675,000 shares at $20 per share in the Regulation A+ IPO. The REIT applied to list its common stock on the NYSE American stock exchange under the ticker symbol AJAX. Aspen REIT intends to use substantially all of the net proceeds from the IPO, together with equity in Aspen REIT’s subsidiary operating partnership, to acquire the St. Regis Aspen Resort, a full-service, 179-key luxury hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain in the Rocky Mountains.”
- Well that’s another way to ‘crowd source’ / syndicate funds.
Finance
Topdown Charts – ChartBrief 182 – Bond Yield Outlook – Callum Thomas 1/24
- “There has been a lot of talk lately about trendlines, key levels and breakouts by some of the big names… Ray Dalio, Jeffrey Gundlach, Bill Gross. But anyway, you don’t need to be a famous hedge fund manager to see the writing slowly showing up on the wall here across the major global sovereign bond markets. The charts below show US and German 10-year bond yields have already broken out, and Japan/UK are getting close.”
WSJ – Daily Shot: US 3 Month LIBOR Rate 1/24
Cryptocurrency
Environment / Science
Yale News – 2018 Environmental Performance Index: Air quality top public health threat 1/23
Mexico
Puerto Rico
- “The devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria has made Puerto Rico’s already dire financial situation even worse: The island’s leaders acknowledged late Wednesday that they will not be able to pay down any portion of their more than $70 billion debt for the next five years because of the damage.”
- “Just before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had made plans to pay creditors a total of $3.6 billion through 2022. That was a fraction of the amount due, had the island, a United States territory, not gone into default.”
- “Now, Puerto Rico expects its budget to be $3.4 billion in the red this year — a deficit that will take five years to close — because of the storm’s toll.”
- “Nearly a third of customers remain without electricity, more than four months after the storm.”
- “The government projects its population will shrink by 19.4% over the next five years, with a total exodus of over 600,000 people.”