Highlight of the Week
Housing Costs, Inflation’s Biggest Component, Are Poised to Ease
- Home sales have fallen due to shrinking demand and dwindling supply caused by the Fed’s rate hikes
- With the highest mortgage rates seen in decades, many would-be buyers have decided to leave the market and wait for prices to fall back down
- Since housing costs which are a large portion of the CPI are slowly falling, inflation is starting to show signs of slowing
Rate Curves
Rapid Report:
Investors Yank Money From Commercial-Property Funds, Pressuring Real-Estate Values
- Many investors are wanting to pull money out of real-estate funds due to the rising interest rates that are pushing down property values
- Blackstone Inc. and Starwood Capital Group were among a few of the firms that have placed a limit on withdrawals from their real-estate funds
- If investors continue to pull money out of the real-estate funds, then companies like Blackstone Inc. will have to start selling properties to pay investors
RBC Bets on Immigration in $10.1 Billion HSBC Canada Deal
- Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) stated that it would pay $10.1 Billion for HSBC’s Canadian operations.
- This deal would set up RBC to take advantage of the expected immigration surge coming to Canada in the next few years
- As RBC’s CEO stated that the main motivation for this deal is to acquire clients for RBC
- This marks the 3rd major acquisition by a Canadian bank in 2022 following Bank of Montreal’s purchase of Bank of the West and TD’s acquisition of First Horizon
