Dear Readers, Please Donate to WOLF STREET: Fall 2025 Reminder

by Wolf Richter • Nov 2, 2025 • 12 Comments

Your generous support allows WOLF STREET to remain free and open to all, not hidden behind a paywall.

Office CMBS Delinquency Rate Hits Record 11.8%, Much Worse than Financial Crisis. Multifamily Delinquencies Soar to 7.1%

by Wolf Richter • Nov 1, 2025 • 45 Comments

Commercial real estate (CRE) loans on office and multifamily properties got further bludgeoned in October.

What Does the “Federal Funds Rate,” which the Fed Targets, still Measure? Not Much, Mostly a Bizarre Arbitrage Trade

by Wolf Richter • Nov 1, 2025 • 11 Comments

“The FOMC should modernize the target rate”: Dallas Fed president Lorie Logan.

Banks Borrow Record $50 Billion at Fed’s New SRF amid Hot Repo Rates, ON RRPs Spike to $52 Billion in Opposite Direction

by Wolf Richter • Oct 31, 2025 • 22 Comments

Month-End Liquidity-Palooza: Banks finally used the new & improved SRF the way the Fed has been exhorting them to use it to keep a lid on repo rates.

Fed Balance Sheet QT: Reserve Balances & ON RRPs -$109 Billion in October, -$3.0 Trillion from Peak. What’s Next, According to Powell

by Wolf Richter • Oct 30, 2025 • 31 Comments

Reserves will shrink further when the balance sheet stays flat after QT ends.

The US Dollar Gets More Fuel from Powell’s Doubts about December Rate Cut

by Wolf Richter • Oct 30, 2025 • 21 Comments

But the much-hyped USD “debasement trade” already died weeks ago. The correct debasement trade has been the yen.

Fed Cuts by 25 Basis Points with 2 Dissents in Opposite Directions, QT to End, but MBS to Continue Rolling Off to Be Replaced by T-bills

by Wolf Richter • Oct 29, 2025 • 165 Comments

Flying blind and despite rising inflation.

Home Sales Have Not Improved at All Despite the Lowest Mortgage Rates in a Year

by Wolf Richter • Oct 29, 2025 • 40 Comments

Pending home sales and applications for mortgages to purchase a home are near historic lows, and lower mortgage rates have not stimulated demand.

Even as Revenues Grow, Amazon to Lay off 14,000. Why? AI & Corporate Efficiency. Walmart and Others Toot Similar Horn

by Wolf Richter • Oct 28, 2025 • 175 Comments

Revenue growth without employment growth. But Amazon spent $78 billion on capex in 2024 and more in 2025. So companies that get this cash hire more people than Amazon sheds?

The Cities Where Condo Prices Are Now Below their Housing Bubble Peaks 20 Years Ago

by Wolf Richter • Oct 26, 2025 • 53 Comments

Boom-Bust, Boom-Bust?

Food Inflation: The Price Spikes of Beef, Coffee, Eggs, and Dairy

by Wolf Richter • Oct 24, 2025 • 121 Comments

CPI for food at home has surged by 30% since January 2020. Food prices are nothing to be trifled with.

Massive Outlier in Owner’s Equivalent of Rent Pushed Down CPI, Core CPI, Core Services CPI: Something Went Awry at the BLS

by Wolf Richter • Oct 24, 2025 • 85 Comments

OER weighs 26% of CPI, 33% of core CPI, 44% of core services CPI. It moves the needle. CPI inflation would have been a lot hotter without this outlier.

Oh Elon, Californians Already Forgot? EV Sales, even Teslas, Spike in Q3 before End of Federal EV Incentives. ICE Vehicle Sales Plunge

by Wolf Richter • Oct 23, 2025 • 61 Comments

Tesla Model Y by far #1 bestseller in California. Cybertruck failed, Model S and X fell off list. Non-Tesla EVs soar to record.

Sales of Existing Single-Family Homes Rise but still 23% below 2019, Supply at 2016 Levels. Condo Sales Near Low in the Data, Supply at Housing Bust Levels, Prices Down YoY

by Wolf Richter • Oct 23, 2025 • 56 Comments

September marks third year in a row of sales wobbling along crushed levels.

US Treasury Debt Hits $38 Trillion after Spiking by $1 Trillion in 2.5 Months and by $1.8 Trillion since the Debt Ceiling

by Wolf Richter • Oct 22, 2025 • 99 Comments

But debt and interest expense don’t exist in a vacuum.

Falling Mortgage Rates further Reduce Demand in the Housing Market (Not so Paradoxically)

by Wolf Richter • Oct 22, 2025 • 38 Comments

Waiting for even lower mortgage rates comes on top of all the big issues that crush demand in the housing market.

The 23 Bigger Cities where Condo Prices Dropped by 12% to 28% through September

by Wolf Richter • Oct 21, 2025 • 53 Comments

The Condo Bust is spreading, after the most extraordinary Condo Bubble maybe ever.

Repo Market Brushfires Doused by Banks’ Use of the Fed’s Standing Repo Facility (SRF)

by Wolf Richter • Oct 20, 2025 • 76 Comments

The new & improved SRF begins to serve its purpose of allowing the Fed to push QT as far as possible without blowing anything up, unlike last time.

The 15 Bigger Cities with the Biggest Price Declines of Single-Family Homes (-10% to -24%) through September

by Wolf Richter • Oct 19, 2025 • 42 Comments

Oakland, Austin, Cape Coral, New Orleans, San Francisco, Birmingham, Fort Myers, Washington DC, Sarasota, Denver, Hayward, Portland, Phoenix, Naples, St. Petersburg.

AI-Powered Tricolor and its Mushroom Cloud of Fraud Allegations Are a Sign Greedy Lenders Closed their Eyes for Years, Not a Sign Consumers Are “Cracking” or Whatever

by Wolf Richter • Oct 17, 2025 • 60 Comments

American consumers are doing OK on their auto loans.