USA finance and payments | Mortgage rates, Bitcoin prices, S.S. disability, unemployment benefits... | July 3

Guzman out as finance minister in ARG

The situation in Argentina has gone from bad to worse after news broke that the country’s finance Minister, Martin Guzman, quit suddenly on Saturday stating a split in the Peronist coalition led to the decision.

The announcement was made public on Twitter, and in the seven page document, he calls for his successor to find  “political agreement within the governing coalition.”

Guzman is the fourth cabinet member to have left his position in President Alberto Fernandez’s administration over the last few months.
The economic climate in Argentina is already on the rocks, and inflation is expected to soar past 70% in the near future.

Nicolas Dujovne, a former centre-right finance minister said of Argentina, “The government has far more problems than the [political] divide: a high deficit, excessive money printing and they’ve lost market confidence.”

Bezos and Biden going back and forth

Jeff Bezos has bitten back after the President of the United States, Joe Biden, after Biden had a clear statement for companies who manage sky rocketing gas prices.

“Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” he wrote in a tweet over the weekend.

Bezos was quick with a reply saying that the U.S. inflation problem is “far too important for the White House to keep making statements like this.”

The price of oil has dipped approximately $15, but White House Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed in a tweet that prices have “barley” dropped. She continued, “But I guess it’s not surprising that you think oil and gas companies using market power to reap record profits at the expense of the American people is the way our economy is supposed to work.”

IRS showcase social media networks

The Internal Revenue Service remind their customers that tax isn't all dull and offer a different angle lon many financial issues on their social media platforms where they offer all the latest updates.

Dollar boosted by safety bid on rising recession fears

Pessimism about the outlook for the global economy boosted demand for the safe haven U.S. dollar on Friday while the Australian dollar, a proxy for global growth, tumbled to a two-year low.

Rampant inflation and a rush by central banks to raise rates and stem the flow of cheap money has fueled sell-offs across markets and lifted assets seen as safer bets. “When people get worried they still buy dollar assets,” said Joseph Trevisani, senior analyst at FXStreet.com in New York. The dollar gained on Friday even as concerns about an economic downturn sent benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields to one-month lows.

The greenback is being swayed between concerns that the Federal Reserve will continue to hike rates aggressively in an effort to blunt soaring price pressures, and the likelihood that this tightening will hurt the economy. “You have weakening rates against the dollar competing against fear of a global recession and enormous amounts of debt and all sorts of other problems,” Trevisani said.

Expectations on how high the U.S. central bank will be able to raise rates have fallen, with traders now pricing in a peak rate of 3.33% in March, down from previous expectations of around 4% before the Fed’s June meeting.

U.S. factory activity slows to two-year low as clouds gather over economy

U.S. manufacturing activity slowed more than expected in June, with a measure of new orders contracting for the first time in two years, signs that the economy was cooling amid aggressive monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve.

The survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on Friday also showed a gauge of factory employment contracting for a second straight month, though an "overwhelming majority" of companies indicated they were hiring.

The slowdown in manufacturing followed moderate consumer spending growth in May along with weak housing starts, building permits and factory production, which left some economists anticipating that the economy contracted again in the second quarter following a slump in gross domestic product in the first three months of the year. Another decline in GDP would not necessarily indicate a recession unless the economy suffers deep job losses.

"This does not suggest that a recession is on the way yet, but growth conditions continue to decelerate broadly in response to Fed tightening and extended cost pressures for consumers and businesses," said Ben Ayers, a senior economist at Nationwide in Columbus, Ohio.

IRS warn against online scams

The Internal Revenue Service has warned its customers and businesses to be on the lookout for bogus calls, texts, emails and online posts. Scammers are vying to steal your personal and financial information. 

Crypto continues downward sprial

Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, has had a difficult ride since it reached its peak value at the back end of last year. From a high of $1 trillion then, the currency now has a value of $364 billion. The whole market is now worth less than $1 trillion, down from $3 trillion last year.

US NEWS

What are gas prices in the US and each state? Today 3 July 2022

There has been a slight decrease over the last two weeks with the average cost of a gallon sitting around the $4.81 mark, a slight reduction from the price on Saturday. This is partly due to the sheer number of drivers of the road as we enter July fourth weekend. Record numbers are expected to take to the roads to be with family and celebrate as close to 42 million people will be driving

Though prices have been trickling down for the last two weeks, 2022 will be the year with the highest fuel prices in all of time. The prior price record was set in 2088 at $4.10 per gallon.

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House prices to fall?

Americans have been battered by rising prices at the pump, in the supermarket and for those buying a home, mortgage rates that have rocketed at the same time housing prices continue to surge. Despite a brief dip in mortgage rates, the 30-year fixed-rate surged more than half a percentage point last week, the largest one-week increase in Freddie Mac’s survey since 1987.

Is the reconciliation bill still alive?

The bill was killed by Senator Joe Manchin at the end of last year, but it seems like negotiations are still continuing.

Worlds richest lose billions of dollars in 2022

An update to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index has shown billionaires have lost a combined $1.4 trillion in the first six months of 2022.

Mark Zuckerberg, whose total net worth is about $60 billion, had begun the year with more than $100 billion, the news outlet noted. Elon Musk, whose total net worth is $210 billion, lost close to $62 billion during that same time period.

The index can be found here.

NFT sales plunge as 2022 destroys market

NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” and it can technically contain anything digital, including drawings, animated GIFs, songs, or items in video games.

Sales of NFTs totalled just over $1billion in June, according to the crypto research firm Chainalysis, their worst performance since the same month last year when sales were $648m. Sales reached a peak of $12.6bn in January.

Latest News

Housing market: Which cities have the most overvalued homes?

Of the one hundred most populated metro areas all have seen increases in property values over the last year. On average house prices increase between 3.5 and 3.8 percent a year. This year that average has shot up to 18.5 percent, with a median of seventeen percent.

It would be difficult to believe that nought shifted within the market in one year to warrant the types of increases seen in these areas. However, some of these areas have seen a massive increase in the number of residents which may have driven property values up so quickly.

Read more

IRS issues scamming warning

The Internal Revenue Service issues a warning against online scammers who can often sound convincing, using bogus names and IRS ID numbers. 

Wall St slides, Dow set for worst first-half since 1962

U.S. stocks slipped setting the Dow up for its worst first six months since 1962, on concerns that a dogged pursuit by central banks to tame inflation would hamper global economic growth.

Fears over slowing growth and surging prices have rippled through markets, with recession worries taking center stage as monetary policymakers across the world look to aggressively raise borrowing costs.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday vowed to not let the U.S. economy slip into a "higher inflation regime", even if it means raising interest rates to levels that put growth at risk.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite came off session lows but was still set for its largest declines ever for the first-half, while the benchmark S&P 500 tracked its biggest January-June percentage drop since 1970.

All the three main indexes are on course to post their second straight quarterly declines for the first time since 2015.

Fed policymakers in recent days have set expectations for a second 75-basis points interest rate hike in July even as economic data painted a dour picture of the American consumer.

US factory activity slows to two-year low as clouds gather

US manufacturing activity slowed more than expected in June, with a measure of new orders contracting for the first time in two years, signs that the economy was cooling amid aggressive monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve.

The survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on Friday also showed a gauge of factory employment contracting for a second straight month, though an "overwhelming majority" of companies indicated they were hiring.

The slowdown in manufacturing followed moderate consumer spending growth in May along with weak housing starts, building permits and factory production, which left some economists anticipating that the economy contracted again in the second quarter following a slump in gross domestic product in the first three months of the year. Another decline in GDP would not necessarily indicate a recession unless the economy suffers deep job losses.

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