Market Update | JUNE 29

DID YOU KNOW?

Top Headlines: Delivered by Leonard Steinberg

JUNE 29, 2023

01  Diamond prices are down 18% from their all-time highs in February 2022, and are lower 6.5% year-to-date.....a combination of post-covid spending pullback and artificial - lab grown - diamonds are causing this DEflation.....maybe a good insight on how prices come down after an artificial surge AND increased supply via technology? (CNBC)

 

 

 

 

 

02  Pioneered by the mid-century Mexican architect Luis Barragán, pigmented concrete is slowly seeping into a slew of recent residential projects, including new-build beach houses, Victorian terraces and adapted alpine chalets. (FT)

03  New York State tax collections in the past two months are running 32.2% lower than a year ago, with personal income tax revenue lagging 45%. Many top earners and corporations have moved residency from New York to other lower- or no-state tax states. Florida’s corporate-tax revenue (a 5.5% rate) during the first 10 months of this fiscal year is up 57.7% year-over-year. The heads of two of New York's largest real estate brokerages now live in Florida and one of those brokerages is now headquartered out of Florida after 100+ years in New York City. Is it likely that New York will no longer be a 'donor state' of Federal taxes either after many decades of delivering more federal taxes to the US government than is spent on the state?. (CNBC)

04  I STILL know what you paid last Summer: 

gas prices last Summer were crazy-high: a year later they have dropped notably in most areas: in Delaware, the state average is down by $1.61 a gallon, Michigan ($1.59), Indiana ($1.59), California ($1.53), Alaska ($1.53) and Texas ($1.51). (CNN) 

05  Fraudsters potentially stole more than $200 billion in federal loans intended to help small businesses struggling during the Covid pandemic, according to The Office of the Inspector General who estimated in a new report that at least 17% of the $1.2 trillion disbursed by the Small Business Administration may have been ripped off by fraudulent actors. That's almost $1,200 per taxpayer.... Inefficient government costs lots!  (CNBC)

06  German house prices fell at a record year-on-year rate of 6.8% in the first quarter of 2023, as higher borrowing costs and weaker economic growth took their toll on Europe’s largest property market.....but again no mention that prices had surged close to 30% in the past 30 months. More RE-BALANCING. (FT)