Mortgage rates climb to 5% for the first time since 2011
U.S. mortgage rates rose to 5% for the first time in more than a decade, raising the pressure on the housing market and adding another burden to homebuyers who were already struggling with rising prices. Since the beginning of the year, interest rates on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage have climbed from about 3% to 5%, the fastest jump since the 1980s, according to Freddie Mac. The rise has added hundreds of dollars a month to the typical house payment and comes on top of two years of blistering price increases in excess of 30%.
Twitter counters a Musk takeover with a plan to thwart the bid
Twitter unveiled its counterattack against Elon Musk on Friday, using a strategy invented to repel corporate raiders in an attempt to block a takeover bid by the world’s richest person. The strategy, known as a poison pill, would flood the market with new shares if Musk, or any other individual or group working together, bought 15% or more of Twitter’s shares. That would immediately reduce Musk’s stake and make it significantly more difficult to buy up a sizable portion of the company. Musk owns more than 9% of the company’s stock.
Biden to Nominate Michael Barr as Fed vice chair for supervision
The Biden administration said Friday that it intended to nominate Michael S. Barr, a law professor and a former Obama administration official, to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision. The position — one of America’s top financial regulatory spots, because it anchors the oversight of large bank holding companies — has proved to be a particularly thorny one to fill. The administration’s initial nominee, Sarah Bloom Raskin, failed to win Senate confirmation after Republicans took issue with her writing on climate-related financial oversight and seized on her limited answers about her private-sector work.
Biden’s tax forms show he and First Lady earned $610,702 in 2021
President Joe Biden and his wife on Friday reported earning $610,702 in 2021, almost the same amount the couple said they earned the year before, according to copies of their tax return made public by the White House. The release of their return — which comes just days before Monday’s deadline for Americans to file their taxes with the IRS — shows that Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, paid $150,439 in federal income tax, for an effective rate of 24.6%. Most of the money the couple earned came from his $400,000 annual salary for being president and two pensions.
China seeks more lending to help its economy
Economic policy in China is moving in the opposite direction from most of the rest of the world, with the country’s central bank announcing Friday that it will ease rules to help promote economic growth as coronavirus outbreaks and lockdowns hurt businesses and consumers. The People’s Bank of China said it would reduce its reserve requirement ratio, effective April 25. The move allows banks to lend a larger share of their assets, while parking less of their money at the central bank, where it earns almost no interest. The central bank said the reduction would free the country’s banks to lend an extra $83 billion.
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