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Top Headlines: Delivered by Leonard Steinberg

August 19, 2024

01 The California Park Fire is now the 4th-largest wildfire in the state’s history, burning nearly 400,000 acres and destroying more than 500 structures. In February this year the Smokehouse Creek Fire ignited in Hutchinson County Texas burned more than 1 million acres under dry, warm and windy conditions, now the largest fire in recorded Texas history.

(CalFire)

02 "No doubt they all took advantage of the situation to widen margins"

– Rick Dunphy. A good indicator that the rate of inflation may already be much lower is major food companies talking about lowering prices or raising them no more than 1%. (FT)

03 Buying agents in the UK typically charge a one-off registration fee of around £3,000+VAT for a detailed brief with a final fee of between 1.5 - 3% of the purchase price on completion.

(FT)

04 U.S. employers added 114,000 jobs in July, far short of forecasts, and unemployment rose to 4.3%, the highest level since 2021. The 10-year Treasury dipped even further....to 3,799%..... a huge shift from 4,57% just 3 months ago....and 4,988% in October, 2023! Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase economists revamped their forecasts for US monetary policy yesterday, all calling for earlier, bigger or more interest-rate cuts. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropped 22 basis points to 6.4% yesterday.

(Mortgage News Daily/ Bloomberg)