Wolf Richter

Oh Dear, Condo Prices already Dropped by 15% to 33% in 24 Bigger Markets, Some Back to Where They’d Been 20 Years Ago. Plus in another 44 bigger cities, condo prices dropped by 7% to 14% so far, as the mindboggling Condo Bubble comes unglued wolfstreet.com/2026/05/25/oh-…

10-Year TIPS v. 10-Year Treasury Securities: Bond Market Has Long Been Delusional about Actual CPI Inflation. There’s no indication bond market is better now in figuring future inflation; its expectation of average 2.4% annual CPI years seems silly low wolfstreet.com/2026/05/24/10-…

Bond Bloodbath Worsens on Inflation, Lax Fed, and Flood of New Debt. Mortgage Rates hit 6.75%. Ugly trifecta that spooks the bond market. To soothe bond yields and mortgage rates, the Fed needs to hike, not “look through” inflation wolfstreet.com/2026/05/20/bon…

Food Inflation in America by Product: It Boils down to a Sharp Acceleration on Top of Already Very High Prices. Ground beef, steak, chicken, fruit & veggies, coffee, dairy, eggs, other foods, and total wolfstreet.com/2026/05/18/foo…

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America: Price Drops & Gains in 33 Big Expensive Cities, April 2026. Home prices fell yoy in 25 of the 33 big expensive cities in April, a bunch set multi-year lows (Oakland & Austin -26% from 2022). Two set new highs wolfstreet.com/2026/05/16/the…

US Government Sold $691 Billion of Treasury Securities this Week, 10-Year Yield Spikes to 4.6%, 30-Year Yield to 5.12% as 2nd Wave of Inflation Takes Off. The Fed is “behind the curve,” and the bond market is getting nervous #comment-680699" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">wolfstreet.com/2026/05/15/us-…

Here Come the HELOCs: Mortgages, Housing-Debt-to-Income-Ratio, Serious Delinquencies, and Foreclosures in Q1 2026. Mortgage balances barely ticked up, but HELOCs soared wolfstreet.com/2026/05/14/her…

Producer Price Inflation Explodes as the Services PPI Blows Out on Top of the Energy Price Spike. This is a massive amount of inflation that companies are passing on to each other through much of the economy wolfstreet.com/2026/05/13/pro…

CPI Inflation Blows Past Fed Rates as Core Services, Gasoline, Electricity, and Food Spike. Fed’s “Real” Rates Are now Negative. The Bureau of Labor Statistics finally corrected part of the CPI distortions in September, October, and November #comment-680237" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">wolfstreet.com/2026/05/12/cpi…

Supply of Existing Single-Family Homes Rises to Highest in 10 Years, Condo Supply Highest since 2012, Sales in Deepfreeze. April was another bad dud for spring selling season as supply continued to pile up wolfstreet.com/2026/05/11/sup…

Housing Bubble & Bust #1 and #2 Seen through Employment at Mortgage Lenders & Mortgage Brokers. Nonbank mortgage lenders shed 40% of their jobs this time, loan brokers 38%. They react to demand, which collapsed wolfstreet.com/2026/05/08/hou…

Federal government shed about 12% of its headcount since January 2025, now down to 2.66 million civilian jobs, lowest since 1966. Its share of total nonfarm payrolls drops to 1.68%, lowest by far in the data going back to 1939 wolfstreet.com/2026/05/08/wei…

Weirdest U.S. Labor Market I’ve Ever Seen: Supply of Labor Shrinks Further while Private-Sector Jobs Grow. Federal government sheds more jobs, now down to 1968 levels. This labor market isn’t bad, just weird wolfstreet.com/2026/05/08/wei…

Prices of Used EVs Spike, from already Lofty Levels, as Gasoline Prices Spike. But Electricity Prices also Soared. High gasoline prices tilt operating costs in favor of EVs. But soaring electricity prices eat into that math wolfstreet.com/2026/05/07/pri…

Construction Spending on Data Centers, Factories, Chip Plants, Powerplants, Office Buildings: Boom one End, Bust the Other. AI investment mania and the second wave of semiconductor plants #comment-679783" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">wolfstreet.com/2026/05/07/con…

Housing Market’s Crucial “Spring Selling Season” Is in Tatters. For the 4th year in a row: Normal-ish mortgage rates, too-high prices, and the lock-in effect from the Fed’s reckless interest-rate repression wolfstreet.com/2026/05/06/hou…

New Single-Family Home Prices Drop Further amid Inventory Glut. But Lower Prices Beget Higher Sales. Inventory in the South still sky-high, up 60% from March 2019. But homebuilders understand what it takes: lower prices and big incentives wolfstreet.com/2026/05/05/new…

Bond Market on Edge: Treasury Yields Spike, 30-Year to 5.03%, Mortgage Rates to 6.52%, as Gulf War Reheats. Which raises a question: How many more Fed rate cuts would it take in this inflationary era to drive the 30-year Treasury yield to 6%? wolfstreet.com/2026/05/04/bon…

Inflation in the Entire US economy Is Rocking and Rolling, and It’s Not Just Energy. The 6-month core services PCE inflation index, accelerating since August, hit 3.7% annualized. Chip prices and software wreak havoc amid consumer electronics wolfstreet.com/2026/04/30/inf…

Without Government Spending & Trade, GDP Rose by 2.5% in Q1, Boosted by AI Investments. Debt-to-GDP ratio Ticks up to 122.6%. Consumer Spending Was OK-ish. Federal government spending spiked back partially after collapsing during the shutdown. Trade worsened wolfstreet.com/2026/04/30/wit…