By Alice Seeley Due to supply chain issues, trick-or-treaters may miss out on a classic candy this Halloween. Last week, Hershey Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck announced that “capacity constraints” mean the company will fall short of meeting the demand for Halloween and Christmas this year, from Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to Kit-Kat bars. “Given many of [...]
By Alice Seeley On Aug. 1, Black Knight Data & Analytics Inc. reported that year-over-year home price growth decreased by 2% from 19.3% to 17.3% in June, the "greatest single-month slowdown on record" since the early 1970s. This dramatic decrease was caused by rising mortgage rates and record-high inflation, although house prices are still higher than they were a year [...]
By Alice Seeley The U.S. housing market is on the brink of a "deep freeze" as mortgage rates and home prices continue to rise, limiting buying and selling of houses, according to Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. Earlier this week, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales dropped 14.2 % to a two-year low last month. Data [...]
By Alice Seeley On July 21, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that applications for unemployment benefits rose by 7,000 to 250,000 in one week. This is the highest amount of claims seen in eight months. The number was higher than predictions from economists polled by data firm FactSet, who expected the number of applications to be 242,000. Over the past four weeks, [...]
By Alice Seeley U.S. oil prices soared above $100 a barrel on July 18 following President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed 5% to $106.27, while West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, also jumped 5% to $102.60 a barrel. During his visit, President Biden failed to convince the leader [...]
By Alice Seeley On July 15, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined Bank of America (BofA) $100 million for “botching the disbursement of state unemployment benefits” during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the bureau, the bank “automatically and unlawfully froze people’s accounts” due to a new automatic fraud detection system at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. BofA made [...]
By Alice Seeley On July 13, Bank of America became the latest bank to forecast a recession later this year as U.S. inflation hits another 40-year high. Bank of America joins Wells Fargo Investment Institute and Nomura Holdings Inc. in predicting a recession in 2022, while economists at Deutsche Bank AG believe one will start [...]
By Alice Seeley On July 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it is temporarily suspending its ban on Juul Labs Inc’s marketing and sales of Juul’s e-cigarettes. The FDA stated this suspension is because the agency “has determined that there are scientific issues unique to the JUUL application that warrant additional review.” This additional review [...]
By Alice Seeley According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the U.S. economy will shrink even more in the year's second quarter. Atlanta's Federal Reserve's GDPNow model, which tracks economic data and adjusts daily, indicates that the economy is expected to contract by 1% in the second quarter. The Fed has yet to release [...]
By Alice Seeley On June 30, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the weekly jobless claims decreased by 2,000 to 231,000. However, economists polled by Bloomberg predicted the reading to decrease by 3,000 to 230,000. Data from the labor department showed the four-week moving average increased by 7,250 from the previous week while the number [...]
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