From HousingWire:
Pending home sales post strong gain in March but lag behind 2024 pace
Recent data hasn’t provided much optimism about the direction of the housing market, but one report suggests better conditions are on the way.
The March reading of the Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) clocked in at 76.5, a 6.1% rise compared to February. An index reading of 100 is equal to contract levels in 2001.
It’s the largest monthly increase since December 2023 and was largely buoyed by relatively lower mortgage rates in March, which averaged 6.65%, according to NAR. But it’s a decline of 0.6% year over year, suggesting that market conditions remain subdued.
“Although pending home sales are slightly down compared with last year, the month-over-month bounce is a step in the right direction,” First American deputy chief economist Odeta Kushi said in a statement. “Despite this cautious optimism, the recent increase in rates and ongoing economic uncertainty may temper this momentum.”
The monthly rise in the index was driven by a 9.8% jump in the South, which had previously been slumping. Pending sales activity in the West (+4.8%) and Midwest (+4.9%) also rose compared to February, while the Northeast saw a decrease of 0.5%.
Similar to the national index, every region but the Midwest fell year over year, with the Northeast (-3%) down the most.
The glimmer of hope in the PHSI follows dismal existing-home sales in March, which fell 2.4% year over year. That decline was also driven by the South, where sales dropped by 4.2%. But new-home sales in March came in surprisingly positive, rising 6% compared to a year ago.
Pending home sales can foreshadow what’s to come in the market, as they tend to precede final sales numbers by a month or two. But data that’s more immediate indicates that there are still bumps ahead.
Fffirst
Nothing to see here, move along…
https://www.nj.com/camden/2025/05/nj-school-district-plans-for-100-job-cuts-as-it-faces-staggering-91m-budget-gap.html
Maybe Jersey Doge wouldn’t be such a bad idea…
Everyone wants a DOGE until they get bit. Many districts across the Country are in this very same position. Enrollment is dropping while populations age. Those sweet Covid funds are gone.
Looks like Camden kicked the can down the road for the last 10 years. Now it is crunch time and they‘re at the end of the road.
Tiger Woods’ fiery four-word clapback to friends who slurred Vanessa Trump.
‘I like White Women”
Nothing can revive this turd:
Italians once ruled the Catholic Church. Will they lead it again?
The last Italian pope died in 1978. Now, among the papal candidates ahead of next week’s conclave, there are several Italian contenders.
The monthly rise in the index was driven by a 9.8% jump in the South, while the Northeast saw a decrease of 0.5%.
This is bullsh*t. No one is moving to red state south. They’re all moving to blue state northeast.
The Camden City School District is facing a staggering $91 million budget deficit as enrollment decreases and payments to charter and Renaissance schools grow, district officials said Wednesday.
Over 100 jobs have already been earmarked for elimination and another 97 vacant position will be eliminated, district officials said.
Public education… as in public… as in the education model, like most political models, is antiquated and dying. Second grade teachers making 100K plus is unacceptable; especially since these muppets eventually “graduate” from high school and can’t do math or read.
End of the road. State aide for us is down $7 million a year since before the pandemic. But spending is up. In 2019 budget was $164 million, it’s risen to 197 million this year and we have a 10 million dollar budget gap. $33 million a year more in 5 years.
We raised taxes 10.1% instead of the usual 5.5% to cover the shortfall. No school closing and consolidation of schools and no layoffs even though enrollment is down, probably still dropping and will never recover.
and like
Like many of my former neighbors the for sale sign will be going up on the lawn after graduation.
I liked Tiger Woods better when he was doing the breakfast drive thru on pancake waitresses around Florida.
haha…bro you are regarded
Fast Eddie says:
May 2, 2025 at 7:28 am
Public education… as in public… as in the education model, like most political models, is antiquated and dying. Second grade teachers making 100K plus is unacceptable; especially since these muppets eventually “graduate” from high school and can’t do math or read
Big victory here breaking the Apple monopoly.
Spotify on Friday said Apple has approved the company’s U.S. app update.
Spotify users will now be able to see how much something costs in the app, including information on the company’s subscriptions and promotions. Users can purchase their subscription of choice through the app, and upgrade or change their plan if they choose. Spotify said customers can also use payment methods other than Apple’s system through the update, according to a blog post.
Apple said it will comply with the court’s order, but strongly disagrees with the decision and will appeal.
Ten 428
+177 on jobs, futures up, China says the office door is open. What’s the crystal ball telling us?
BTW, did anyone catch the DOGE tech dudes highlighting some findings? Absolutely stunning. These cats are young with IQ levels that are scary high.
Juice,
Won’t be long before customers begin receiving letters that their credit has been comprimised and be offered a bag of peanut M&Ms for joining the class action lawsuit.
Don’t expect your government to get justice for you.
Eat your M&Ms and Shut the Fuck up.
When your DICC does the thinking for you. Dude you really wanna go to jail for this lying blowhard?
Nature only gave you enough blood for one head at a time. Guess he used the wrong one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El1yhPrnnSw
“(Bloomberg) — Apple (AAPL) plans to source more than 19 billion chips from the US this year, part of a global supply chain shift to gradually lessen its reliance on China and elevate India for iPhone production.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook talked about leaning more heavily on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM), which is expanding its Arizona operations to half a dozen plants.“
Proud to introduce the new Chrysler Iphone.
Made by the drunk and vape addled brains of Americans.
Same Price, No warranty. But exceptional battery life since it won’t be able to acquire a cell tower connection reliably.
Apple Care is a must purchase with this phone.
Fast Eddie says:
May 2, 2025 at 9:25 am
“(Bloomberg) — Apple (AAPL) plans to source more than 19 billion chips from the US this year,
The ‘chemtrail’ conspiracy focuses on the idea that the government is spraying a host of dangerous chemicals from commercial airliners to intentionally make people sick.
The vast majority of mainstream scientists believe the theory has been thoroughly debunked and that most condensation trails, or ‘contrails’, seen in the sky are the result of water vapor from aircraft exhausts freezing into ice crystals as it hits the cold air at high altitudes.
But US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is a long time believer they are part of a ‘mass uncontrolled experiment.’
RFK Jr has suggested chemtrails are ‘affecting the environment and our health,’ along with touting geoengineer as ‘a real program.’
After repeatedly calling this act ‘a crime’ on social media, RFK Jr addressed the issue during an interview with Dr Phil Tuesday.
‘Those materials are put in jet fuel,’ RFK Jr claimed. ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it. Find out who’s doing it and holding them accountable.’
New Iphone to be manufactured at our new factory, the site of the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Red blooded American children will assemble these in their new state of the art classrooms. As aways, we take security serously so there this facility will be completely secure. Barbed wire and a suicide prevention net are some features we have used at Foxconn and will be implemeting here as your children’s safety is our number one concern.
Will this new Iphone have the Pegasus hardware circuit baked right into the processor itself or is it a seperate module?
TSMC is already making the Apple A16 chips in the latest iPhones at their new Arizona plant. This is built the 4nm process technology. They have also started building new plants aka FABs there for the cutting edge 1.6nm and 2nm chips..
Dunno if anyone was paying attention but the spend is enormous 165 billion. It is the largest foreign funded project ever to build manufacturing here in the USA.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-expands-investments-in-the-u-s-to-usd165-billion-with-new-fabs-and-r-and-d-center-a-closer-look
Phoenix – Every hear of the Berkeley Packet Sniffer?
It’s built into lots of things and can see all data unencrypted because of how it hooks into the Operating System….
Think of the Movie Zero day with Deniro.. The “Proteus” software built into all cell phones etc. Would not really take much to put something directly on the chip…
Arms manufacturing fraud in Ukraine… Defense plant in the Dnipro region was supplying dud bombs to the front line…
“Ukraine’s internal security bureau said on Tuesday that it had detained four people after investigating the supply of 120,000 defective mortar shells to its troops.
SBU, wrote on its Telegram channel that the people arrested included a military official, a quality control official, and two heads of a defense manufacturing business.
The security service didn’t name the arrested persons, but it accused all four of conspiring to “reduce production costs to increase their profits.”
The SBU said the military and quality control officials “deliberately ignored” the defective ammunition and falsified records to cover up the scheme.”
maga can’t make shoes nor cars but it’s excited about making phones?
iPhones work. they just do. and now Putin destroying our best
Dark Phoenix says:
May 2, 2025 at 9:47 am
Proud to introduce the new Chrysler Iphone.
Made by the drunk and vape addled brains of Americans.
Same Price, No warranty. But exceptional battery life since it won’t be able to acquire a cell tower connection reliably.
Apple Care is a must purchase with this phone.
Fast Eddie says:
May 2, 2025 at 9:25 am
“(Bloomberg) — Apple (AAPL) plans to source more than 19 billion chips from the US this year,
Zuck still churning away with his MetaVerse. No too many companies can flush 60 Billion down the toilet and still get rewarded.
“Meta’s Reality Labs division continued its losing streak with another $4.2 billion down the drain in the first quarter of 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stated priorities on Wednesday’s earnings call suggest his metaverse dream is well and truly over.
The social media giant released its first-quarter earnings report, beating analyst expectations and causing shares to pop. Meta’s entire business is essentially its family of apps – from Facebook to WhatsApp – which recorded $41.9 billion in revenue (up 16 percent year on year) and $21.8 billion in net income (up 23 percent) in the first three months of 2025.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Reality Labs group, responsible for Meta’s various metacurse, er, verse and VR projects, wiped out a chunk of those profits.
The unit’s $4.2 billion loss – steeper than the year-ago’s $3.8 billion loss – was still slightly better than Wall Street’s average forecast of $4.6 billion. However, sales of Reality Labs products like Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses fell short, bringing in just $412 million versus the expected $493 million.
Despite those losses, which have topped $60 billion since the unit’s inception in 2020, Zuckerberg kept touting its potential for a long time, saying as recently as January’s Q4 2024 earnings call that 2025 was “going to be a pivotal year for the metaverse.”
Ten 431
Would you rather a UST 10 year at 431 or a Chinese 10 Yr at 188?
Deflationary spiral in China perhaps? They say they may even allow their currency devalue to protect exports….
This has value. Especially the One Direction joke.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J39zbc_tG1M&pp=ygUXVHdvIGZlcm5zIG9uZSBkaXJlY3Rpb24%3D
Much like it’s creator AI lies allot too.
“when AI models face a conflict between telling the truth or accomplishing a specific goal, they lie more than 50 percent of the time.”
“Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Michigan, and the Allen Institute for AI have looked at the trade-off AI models make between truthfulness and utility, using hypothetical scenarios where the two conflict.
What they found is that AI models will often lie in order to achieve the goals set for them.
Authors Zhe Su, Xuhui Zhou, Sanketh Rangreji, Anubha Kabra, Julia Mendelsohn, Faeze Brahman, and Maarten Sap describe their work in a preprint paper titled “AI-LieDar: Examine the Trade-off Between Utility and Truthfulness in LLM Agents.”
“Our experiment demonstrates that all models are truthful less than 50 percent of the time,” in these conflict scenarios, “though truthfulness and goal achievement (utility) rates vary across models,” the paper states.
“We further test the steerability of LLMs towards truthfulness, finding that models can be directed to be truthful or deceptive, and even truth-steered models still lie.”
The researchers draw a distinction between deceptive behavior (concealing information) and hallucination (misprediction). They acknowledge it’s difficult to tell one from the other in the absence of access to the model’s internal state, but they claim they took steps to minimize the risk of hallucination.”
Here’s a story you can sink your teeth into
Road rage woman drops a deuce on car’s hood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LRftQ-keuQ
HMB
Fem N Insm.
It used to be something men might do. Well equality says they should be able to do so too.
Sure, why not.
But why not just stick to making the same pay for equal work, sitting on the front of the bus, same job promotions.
Why this?
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) added 1.6%, headed for a ninth straight win in what would be its longest streak since November 2004. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up 1.5%, or over 600 points, poised for its own ninth winning day in a row.
Any questions?
Get drunk, arrested, put on YouTube by the NJ PoPo telling trade secrets and TayTay’s secrets:
https://youtu.be/1_OZGxUgIjQ?t=2264
Any questions?
Sure.
When will the market get back to where it started when Trump took office?
I suppose, once he removes every cockamamie economically perilous idea he initiated. I did scale more back in last Tuesday thankfully.
Yeah, what happens when/if you shut down China as a trading partner, he’s dead set on this.
50% of the world’s AI researchers are Chinese.
Meanwhile maga is excited about shoe manufacturing returning to America
In the meantime Lib, there were bottoms to be found in companies that got slaughtered on share price. Once that policy is reversed or dropped, mean reversion back up.
In all honesty, we need massive homegrown factories for things for weaponized drones & robots to put protestors down, fight wars, and crime. As far as shoes go? they’re overrated. Just ask a Trump voter.
Robocop anyone?
I want to wear Nikes, I don’t want to make them!
– Dave Chappell
Nikes can be made in Cambodia, in Milan, and Santiago. The best Nike’s come from Pakistan.
Happy Friday you miscreants/
See VF corporation (VFC), 15% bounce. I’m guessing stocks like Nike and Estee Lauder to follow and reverse on news.
re: “. The best Nike’s come from Pakistan.”
Nope the best Nike’s come from forced Uyghur labor
“In the meantime Lib, there were bottoms to be found in companies that got slaughtered on share price. Once that policy is reversed or dropped, mean reversion back up.”
Of course, I did nicely. Timed it like a pro. But I am still worried about the near future. Nonetheless, happy to see the market bounce back a bit.
Lot of yard work. Beautiful day!
I was chatting with my hard working lawn maintenance guy … been working with me for 12 years now. He is originally from Honduras and his kids are born here – 21 and 16 boys.
He said his older kid doesn’t go to college and now works ar shoprite in the food service section. The kid would make a lot more money if he worked with dad, but refuses to. He does not want to do the hard labor. The younger kid is always on the phone as well. He said “kids born here dont listen. They want fancy clothes and phones but dont work hard”.
I said, just be patient they may come back later.
Factory work, work in the docks, or farm work – fuggedaboutit.
Phoenix
Being anntisocial is empowering for some.
Not many though. It’s usually a route to a shorter more miserable life.
Former NJ Teacher Sent Child Porn To Wisconsin Man, Feds Say: Disturbing Details Released
A 23-year-old New Jersey woman who taught children in Japan is facing federal charges for sending a Wisconsin man child porn, specifically, photos and videos of children taken at a local hotel, authorities said.
Scroll to page 3.
Hang on tight.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/media/1398896/dl?inline
He does not want to do the hard labor.
That’s for suckers… those dumb enough to not concentrate on college. Hard labor is for losers.
I was told so.
Skilled labor is much much better than doing “hard” dumb work.
HMB
I would have approved if she shat on the hood of a Bimmer.
Perfect emblem for the drivers of those cars.
In fact, they should make a chrome emblem of a perfect turd as a hood ornament for a BMW.
Skilled labor working for a PoPo’s side business sucks. He get the tax break, then threatens to send you back to Guatemala if you ask for a second jug of water on a hot day.
When will the market get back to where it started when Trump took office?
Soon. And it’ll blow past that. I just wonder which weekly micro rage will take it’s place. Rac1st jelly beans? No brown M&Ms? Cruelty to horses… ban the Kentucky Derby! Churchhill Downs is rac1st. Discrimination against those with Chipmunk Psychology degrees?
Well, you just pretty much proved my statements from back in January that don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.
3:42 What’s wrong with you?
Better angle…animal.
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1918360932486660307?s=46
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) added nearly 1.5% to climb above its closing level on April 2, when President Trump announced a sweeping tariff plan on what he called “Liberation Day.”
lololol.
Rebecca A. Sayegh, 32, was expected to board a flight Friday evening for an out-of-state facility operated by Shatterproof, a mental health treatment program that specializes in treating law enforcement officers, said Terrance Turnbach, her attorney.
Nice.
Anyone else would still be in jail.
Poop lady.
Family trying to get a lawyer over their car being crapped on.
It’s an F’n Hyundai.
If anything this helped it.
What do they need a lawyer for, emotional distress? Car wash?
Start a “Go FUnd Me”
Oh the horror!!!
Fun fact 92% of the money made on Tariffs last Trump term went to compensating farmers for their losses.
MAGA not good with math. Or facts.
On the topic of apple. Tim Cook has said before apple isn’t about innovating. It’s about perfecting the perfect experience once others have innovated.
They’re just sticking to their core philosophies. Nothing wrong with that. Damn good American company.
If anything I respect Apple for their measured and responsible position on AI while everyone else is throwing billions at the wall and seeing what sticks.
What is a billion here and a billion there among friends
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/02/nasa-leader-warns-employees-tough-choices-ahead-with-6-billion-budget-cut-looming.html
Cut budget for research everywhere and pour it into outer space. The toothless peeenut seller in Georgia who voted for Trump is winning big!
Yup….but imho, the robots will save us. AGI will be the death of capitalism on the simple basis that human labor will not be needed to produce. What evolves from it, now that’s the big question.
“A lot of countries basically are caught in a trap from which there is no escape.
1) They have a lot of old people. They need healthcare, pensions, etc. This is *incredibly* expensive.
2) More old people means less tax money, more tax burden on the increasingly few working people and families.
3) You either a) sacrifice all other public services to keep the old person money pipe flowing, b) cut benefits to old people, or c) increase immigration.
4) You get voted out because all of these are immensely unpopular.
You can try to increase productivity or growth… by this is hard, and many of the ways it can be done (like deregulation, building liberalization, and capital investment) are also expensive and politically unpopular.”
That’s a good angle that I didn’t see. Good company.
RentL0rd says:
May 2, 2025 at 9:11 pm
If anything I respect Apple for their measured and responsible position on AI while everyone else is throwing billions at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Inaccurate
RentL0rd says:
May 2, 2025 at 9:11 pm
If anything I respect Apple for their measured and responsible position on AI while everyone else is throwing billions at the wall and seeing what sticks.