Saturday, November 9, 2024

That 3% mortgage rate isn't gonna happen

This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on

This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on web readership.

Trump's First Broken Promise Will Be 3% Mortgage Rates — Jonathan Levin

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

In many ways, Donald Trump was elected to a second presidency as part of a cost-of-living backlash, and unaffordable housing was at the center of Americans' frustration. High home prices and the highest mortgage rates since the financial crisis meant that as much as a third of the country was effectively locked out of the homeownership dream. That, in turn, helped explain why Americans gave the economy such low marks in consumer sentiment surveys and political polls even as official inflation statistics cooled and the stock market boomed alongside gross domestic product.

The early signs from mortgage and bond markets aren't encouraging on that front. Trump will have to dramatically moderate his agenda if he's going to meet voters' expectations and, even then, his promise to drive mortgage rates down to 3% or lower seems well out of reach in the absence of a sharp economic downturn.

Throughout the campaign, Trump spooked most mainstream economists with his comments about 60% tariffs on Chinese imports and duties of as much as 20% on all others. He also promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, which could dramatically curb labor supply in key fields such as construction and child care, in addition to the toll it would take on families. Add to that the eye-popping deficit math of actually implementing Trump's various tax promises (expanding the 2017 tax cuts, no tax on tips, etc.) and you can understand why inflation concerns have resurfaced and fixed-income traders have demanded a premium for the emerging risk.

Read the whole thing for free.

China's Luckin Shows Starbucks How to Sell Coffee — Shuli Ren

Trump's Appeal to Young Men, in Three Charts — Allison Schrager

Saudi Aramco Is Burning Cash – It Needs to Stop — Javier Blas

China Can't Cut EV Subsidies It Isn't Paying — David Fickling

That Giant Sucking Sound Is From India's Stock Market — Andy Mukherjee

The Trump Trades Worked — Matt Levine

The 'Happiness Plateau' Doesn't Exist — Adrian Wooldridge

São Paulo Is Becoming a City You Don't Want to Miss — JP Spinetto

NATO Will Likely Survive Trump, But at a Cost — James Stavridis

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