Regulation

Robert Kaplan Takes Early Retirement From Dallas Fed Amid Trading Scandal

The Dallas Fed's Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren announced they will be taking early retirement. Revelations of dubious trading activity by various Fed officials have weighed heavily on the credibility of the Federal Reserve in recent weeks. It's about time! It's not like the Fed had much credibility left to salvage. FOMC officials have demonstrated time and time again they have no shame. The internet was quick to chime in on the news of Kaplan and Rosengren's early retirement, but the best take of all has to be from Pam & Russ [...]

Average Denton County Home Costs More Than Half a Million

Denton County home prices shattered records last month. The median price of a home in the area hit $410,000, up 22.4 percent from the same time a year ago. The average price of a Denton County home hit $506,957, shattering the previous high set in June. The new average home price above half a $million was 29.7 percent higher than August of 2020. Average prices for new construction and resale properties hit new records last month as inventory remained in the basement. The number of homes available for sale in Denton County dipped slightly from [...]

New Home Sales Rise Slightly, Up 15.2 Percent Year-over-Year

New home sales rose 1.6 percent in December according to Census estimates. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 842,000 translates into a 15.2 percent increase from December of 2019. The median price of a new home sold in December 2020 was $355,900. The average price was $394,900. The median price of a new U.S. home rose $26,400, or 8 percent in the middle of a global pandemic even as millions of Americans were losing their jobs. If that's not a testament to the power of central bank liquidity, I don't know what is. The inventory [...]

Things Get Ugly For Denton-Based Sally Beauty

Things just got ugly for Denton-based Sally Beauty supply. The international retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies saw its stock plummet after Amazon announced its own professional beauty store. This is not exactly great news for one of Denton's largest businesses. Amazon is a virtually unregulated monopoly on multiple fronts with huge tax advantages to many of its competitors. Amazon Beauty customers will still need a license to purchase professional use products, but Amazon is playing by a different set of rules as regulators continue to turn a blind eye to Amazon's monopolistic business [...]

Foreign Buyers Still Flooding U.S. Real Estate Market

The the volume of foreign buyers buying U.S. residential real estate rose dramatically during the latest 12-month survey from the National Association of Realtors. The 2017 Profile of International Activity in U.S. Residential Real Estate shoes that the dollar volume of purchases by foreign buyers rose from $102.6 billion in 2016 to $153 billion in the latest 12-month period ending in March. In all, foreign buyers purchased 284,455 U.S. residential properties accounting for 5 percent of existing home sales and 10% of existing home sales by dollar volume. If you were wondering what's been driving the [...]

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