Week of July 8, 2022 Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“Amateurs think about how much money they can make. Professionals think about how much money they could lose.” –Jack Schwager
1. Latest Fed Minutes Could Bolster Bets for 75 Basis-Point Hike in July — Chair Jerome Powell has said the Fed could hike by either 50 basis points or 75 basis points in July. He made the remarks at a June 15 press conference after policy makers raised rates by 75 basis points in the largest hike since 1994. Updated quarterly projections of the 18 policy makers show the median participant on the Federal Open Market Committee sees rates rising to 3.4% at year’s end and 3.8% next year, from a current target range of 1.5% to 1.75%.
2. Mortgage Rates Fall by Most Since 2008 on Recession Fears — the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.3% for the last week, according to according to data released by Freddie Mac. The drop in rates, alongside a a 5.4% drop in mortgage applications for the week ending July 1, reveals a broader cooling in the housing market.
3. Crypto Broker Voyager’s Marketing on Safety of Customer Accounts Draws FDIC Scrutiny — Voyager Digital Ltd. VOYG 0.00%▲ marketed its deposit accounts for cryptocurrency purchases as safe, protected by the nation’s banking insurance system in the event of a failure. Voyager froze all activity, including withdrawals on $350 million in customer deposits that are stored at Metropolitan Commercial Bank, a small New York bank. Voyager said customers would be able to access those dollars after “a reconciliation and fraud prevention process is completed.” Still, some customers online said they were only just learning their deposits weren’t insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the way they thought. Voyager had marketed the accounts as protected by that national safety net, an attractive pitch in the volatile world of cryptocurrency.
4. U.S. Added 372,000 Jobs in June — the U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department said Friday. Hiring gains last month held near the previous three months, when companies added an average of nearly 400,000 workers, but slipped from higher totals early in the year. Employers hired across industries, with the government the only major category to shed jobs in June. Hiring continued in industries vulnerable to interest-rate increases and shifting consumer habits. For instance, construction firms, susceptible to a faltering housing market and higher mortgage rates, added jobs last month. Transportation and warehousing companies hired workers despite a spring pullback of consumer spending on goods. The strong employment figures released Friday keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates by 0.75 percentage point at its meeting later this month to cool high inflation.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
