Another connection to Trump’s Iran War that is hurting Iran AND Americans….
See below for the Fed and Banks news…..
Mortgage rates in the United States climbed for the third week in a row, further squeezing housing affordability as the war in the Middle East drives up costs.
The average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rate rose to 6.22 percent, the mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac said Thursday, up from 6.11 percent a week earlier. The last time mortgage rates were this high was the second week of December.
Mortgage rates dipped below 6 percent in February, days before the war started, but they have been rising since then. Iran’s retaliation to U.S. and Israeli attacks, including effectively blocking oil and gas exports from the region, has raised energy costs and concerns about inflation globally. In response, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, which underpin mortgage rates, have also climbed.
For home buyers, the higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars annually to their loan payments. The war in the Middle East compounds affordability challenges for many Americans, but for the time being, the fighting is not likely to alter long-term decisions on major purchases like home buying, said Michael Pearce, the chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
“The longer this goes on,” he added, “the more it’s likely to affect buyer behavior.”
The fighting is weighing on other participants in the housing market, too. Higher prices for oil and gas translate into higher costs for materials for builders…..
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Other Financial actions coming off Trump’s Iran War….
The Fed…
The escalating conflict in the Middle East has narrowed the Federal Reserve’s path to lower interest rates this year, as surging energy prices have injected fresh uncertainty into the economic outlook.
Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, sought on Wednesday to keep the central bank’s policy options open after officials voted to hold borrowing costs steady at their first meeting since the onset of the Iran war. But even as Mr. Powell tried to avoid sending an explicit signal in any direction about where rates might be headed, it quickly became clear that a cut this year is by no means guaranteed.
President Trump on Thursday bristled at the Fed’s most recent policy decision and revived his demand for the central bank to immediately lower borrowing costs….
Trump Admin Loosening Bank Risk Rules….
Federal banking regulators released a long-awaited proposal on Thursday that would reduce capital requirements on large and regional banks, a move that proponents hope will trim red tape and encourage more lending. Critics fear the changes could increase systemic risk in the banking sector.
The proposed changes would reduce, by billions of dollars, the capital that banks are required to set aside to cover potential losses. The changes cumulatively reduce the largest banks’ core safety cushion requirements by 4.8 percent, on average. Smaller banks would see average decreases of as much as 7.8 percent, according to the regulators’ analysis.
The proposals would alter rules imposed in the aftermath of the financial crisis that sparked the Great Recession in 2007. Since then, large banks more than doubled their capital levels, adding $1 trillion to the buffers intended to help them withstand shocks and downturns.
Banks have for years lobbied to have requirements loosened, and regulators said they agreed that it was now safe to make adjustments….
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