Economy

A sign advertising home loan rates for purchase or refinancing at a Bank of America in New York. Scott Mlyn | CNBC A brief surge in mortgage refinance demand fizzled fast, after interest rates resumed their climb along with the stock market. The initial scare from the Covid omicron variant caused rates to drop for

Construction workers frame a new home being built by CastleRock Communities in the Sunfield neighborhood of Buda, Texas, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021. Matthew Busch | Bloomberg | Getty Images Surprisingly strong housing demand, even in the usually slower season for housing, has homebuilders feeling increasingly confident. Builder sentiment in the single-family housing market

Wholesale prices increased at their quickest pace on record in November in the latest sign that the inflation pressures bedeviling the economy are still present, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The producer price index for final demand products increased 9.6% over the previous 12 months after rising another 0.8% in November. Economists had been looking

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell attends the House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 30, 2021. Al Drago | Reuters The Federal Reserve is expected to announce a dramatic policy shift Wednesday that will clear the way for a first interest rate hike next year. Markets are anticipating the Fed

Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images If the Federal Reserve meets expectations next week and announces a more aggressive unwind of the measures taken to boost the economy, it will

Mohamed El-Erian Olivia Michael | CNBC Calling inflation “transitory” was a historically bad move for the Federal Reserve, according to Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian. “The characterization of inflation as transitory is probably the worst inflation call in the history of the Federal Reserve, and it results in a high probability of a policy

Weekly jobless claims tumbled last week, reaching a fresh 52-year low as the U.S. jobs market climbs out of its pandemic-era hole, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Initial filings for unemployment insurance totaled 184,000 for the week ended Dec. 4, the lowest going back to Sept. 6, 1969, which saw 182,000. Initial claims for unemployment

Gabriela Chirinos pumps gas into her vehicle at a Shell station on November 22, 2021 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images If the consensus is correct, the last time inflation was this high was in the early years of the Reagan administration – as the U.S. found itself amid a steep and persistent

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Inflation grew at its fastest clip in almost four decades last month — and rising costs are hitting the biggest areas of household budgets. Inflation measures changes in the price consumers pay for goods and services. It jumped 6.8% in the year through November 2021, the largest annual spike

Inflation accelerated at its fastest pace since 1982 in November, the Labor Department said Friday, putting pressure on the economic recovery and raising the stakes for the Federal Reserve. The consumer price index, which measures the cost of a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, rose 0.8% for the month, good for a 6.8% pace

WASHINGTON – Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said the ongoing labor shortage plaguing the nation was a primary focus for America’s defense business. “When I think about the challenges that we all might face going into next year, the labor shortages that we’re seeing are suddenly one that’s top of mind,” Warden told CNBC’s Morgan

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the CARES Act, at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, U.S., September 28, 2021. Kevin Dietsch | Reuters Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell believes that the omicron variant of Covid-19 and a recent uptick in coronavirus

Eliminating tariffs imposed on goods during the worst of the trade war would help ease inflation in the U.S., former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told CNBC on Tuesday. But there’s currently “no political space” to do so, he said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.” “I think that the United States and China have deep differences.

Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Mortgage rates rose decisively again for most of last week, causing a massive drop in mortgage demand, but on Friday everything changed with the news of the Covid omicron variant. Last week the average rate on the 30-year mortgage with conforming loan balance ($548,250 or less) increased to

The U.S. economy created far fewer jobs than expected in November, in a sign that hiring started to slow even ahead of the new Covid threat, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 210,000 for the month, though the unemployment rate fell sharply to 4.2% from 4.6%, even though the labor force

A worker moves boxes of goods to be scanned and sent to delivery trucks during operations on Cyber Monday at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, November 29, 2021. Mike Segar | Reuters Job growth is expected to have been strong in November, and employers likely continued to boost wages to attract and retain

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week but held at levels consistent with how the job market looked before the Covid-19 pandemic devastated the U.S. employment picture, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time filings for the week ended Nov. 27 totaled 222,000, less than the 240,000 Wall Street expected. That was higher than the

Companies added jobs at a robust pace in November despite worries about rising inflation and the threat that the pandemic could slow growth into the winter months, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP. Private hiring increased by 534,000 for the month, better than the Dow Jones estimate of 506,000 in a