The KUIK Market Update Report for Wednesday, March 29:
Markets are mixed.
Index
Direction
Change
Units
Time
Dow
Down
(66)
points
20,637
8:54 AM
S&P500
Down
-0.1%
percent
2,357
Nasdaq Composite
Up
0.1%
percent
5,880
30 Year Treasury
Down
(1)
Basis Points
3.00
Annual Yield
Pending home sales rose 5.5% in February after falling 2.8% in January, the National Association of Realtors reported. That’s the highest level in close to a year. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed. The NAR said the rising stock market and steady hiring helped, as well as home buyers onthe fence are afraid of rising interest rates.
Economists Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University say that at the high end of projected industrial robot takeup, there would be a 0.94 to 1.76 percentage point drop in the employment-to-population ratio by 2025. The authors didn’t quantify the jobs at risk, but the Census Bureau projects the 2025 population to be 347.3 million people, meaning between 3.3 million and 6.1 million jobs could be lost.
Serving the West Side first, I am Bill Roller of BR Capital for 1360 KUIK.