NewUS homesales jump 12% in May despite soaring mortgage rates

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2 years ago

July 5, 2023

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Sales of new US single-family homes surged to the highest level in nearly 1-1/2 years in May, benefiting from a dearth of previously owned homes available for sale.

New home sales jumped 12.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 763,000 units last month, the highest level since February 2022, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday.

April’ssalespace was revised down to 680,000 units from the previously reported 683,000.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast newhomesales, which account for a small share of homesales, slipping to a rate of 675,000 units.

Salesshot up 20% on a year-on-year basis in May.

Newhomesalesare counted at the signing of a contract, making them a leading indicator of the housing market.

They, however, can be volatile on a month-to-month basis.

The housing market has likely found a floor and could be even improving.

Data last week showedhomebuilder confidence rising into positive territory in June for the first time in 11 months.

Housingstarts surgedin May as supply remains tight, whilehomeresalesedged up.

Economists say the signs of revival in the housing market suggested the Federal Reserve would need to keep raising interest rates.

The housing market has been the biggest causality of the central bank’s fastest rate hiking cycle since the 1980s.

The Fed, which has raised its policy rate by 500 basis points since March 2022, has signaled two more rate increases this year to cool demand in the overall economy.

The increase insaleslast month was despite mortgage rates resuming their upward trend.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage was higher in May relative to April, rising to 6.57% by the last week of the month, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.

Newhomesalesposted double-digit growth in the Northeast, South and West.

They rose 4.1% in the Midwest.

The median new house price in May was $416,300, a 7.6% drop from a year ago.

There were 428,000 newhomes on the market at the end of last month, down from 432,000 in April.

At May’ssalespace it would take 6.7 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 7.6 months in April.

Dubai state-owned bank Emirates NBD debuts crypto trading on Liv X app

Published

3 hours ago

March 6, 2025

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Dubai state-owned bank Emirates NBD debuts crypto trading on Liv X app

One of the largest banking groups in the region, Dubai-state-run Emirates NBD, offers crypto trading services in collaboration with Aquanow and Zodia Custody.

Trump tells Hamas ‘you are dead’ if Israeli hostages are not immediately handed over

Published

3 hours ago

March 6, 2025

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Trump tells Gazans 'you are dead' if Israeli hostages are not immediately handed over

US President Donald Trump has told Hamas to hand over Israeli hostages or “you are dead”.

The threat, made over social media, came hours after the White House confirmed that US officials had broken with tradition to hold direct talks with Hamas.

The US has previously avoided direct contact with the group owing to Washington’s longstanding position not to negotiate with terrorists – with Hamas having been designated as a terrorist group in the US since 1997.

In a press conference on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said there had been “ongoing talks and discussions” between the US officials and Hamas.

But she would not be drawn on the substance of the talks – taking place in Doha, Qatar – between US officials and Hamas, but said Israel had been consulted.

Ms Leavitt continued: “Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do what’s in the best interest of the American people, is something that the president has proven is what he believes is a good faith, effort to do what’s right for the American people.”

There are “American lives at stake,” she added.

Adam Boehler, Mr Trump’s pick to be special envoy for hostage affairs, participated in the direct talks with Hamas.

A spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas”.

Hours later, Mr Trump warned Hamas to hand over Israeli hostages or “it’s over for you” – adding: “This is your last warning”.

On his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump wrote: “Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered or it is over for you.

“Only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”

Mr Trump met with freed Israeli hostages on Wednesday, something he referenced in his social media post, before adding: “This is your last warning. For the leadership of Hamas, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.

“Also, to the people of Gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release the hostages now, or there will be hell to pay later.”

Israel estimates about 24 living hostages, including American citizen Edan Alexander, and the bodies of at least 35 others, are still believed to be in Gaza.

The US has a long-held policy of not negotiating with terrorists – which it is breaking with these talks as Hamas has been designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center since 1997.

The discussions come as a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire continues to hold, but its future is uncertain.

Mr Trump has signalled he has no intention of pushing the Israeli prime minister away from a return to combat if Hamas does not agree to terms of a new ceasefire proposal – which, Israel says, has been drafted by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

The new plan would require Hamas to release half its remaining hostages – the group’s main bargaining chip – in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Israel has made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners, a key component of the first phase.

Fighting in Gaza has been halted since 19 January.

Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli and five Thai hostages for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Technology

Alibaba shares soar after Chinese tech giant unveils new DeepSeek rival

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3 hours ago

March 6, 2025

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Alibaba shares soar after Chinese tech giant unveils new DeepSeek rival

The Alibaba office building is seen in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, on Aug 28, 2024.

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Alibaba shares surged on Wednesday after the Chinese behemoth revealed a new reasoning model it claims can rival DeepSeek’s global blockbuster R1.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba ended the Thursday session up 8.39% — hitting a new 52-week high — with the company’s New York-trading stock rising around 2.5% in premarket deals. Alibaba shares have gained nearly 71% in Hong Kong in the year to date.

The Chinese giant on Thursday unveiled QwQ-32B, its latest AI reasoning model, which it said “rivals cutting-edge reasoning model, e.g., DeepSeek-R1.”

Alibaba’s QwQ-32B operates with 32 billion parameters compared to DeepSeek’s 671 billion parameters with 37 billion parameters actively engaged during inference — the process of running live data through a trained AI model in order to generate a prediction or tackle a task.

Parameters are variables that large language models (LLMs) — AI systems that can understand and generate human language — pick up during training and use in prediction and decision-making. A lower volume of parameters typically signals higher efficiency amid increasing demand for optimized AI that consumes fewer resources.

Alibaba said its new model achieved “impressive results” and the company can “continuously improve the performance especially in math and coding.”

Both established and emerging AI players around the world are racing to produce more efficient and higher-performance models since the unexpected launch of DeepSeek’s revolutionary R1 earlier this year.

Chinese firms have been doubling down on the technology with Alibaba investing in AI after debuting its first model in 2023. The strength of the company’s cloud Intelligence unit was a key contributor to Alibaba’s sharp profit hike in the December quarter.

“Looking ahead, revenue growth at Cloud Intelligence Group driven by AI will continue to accelerate,” Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said at the time.

Optimism surrounding AI developments could lead to large gains for Alibaba stock and set the company’s earnings “on a more upwardly-pointing trajectory,” Bernstein analysts said.

“The pace of innovation is incredibly fast right now. It’s really good for the world to see this happening,” Futurum Group CEO Dan Newman told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday. “When DeepSeek came out, it made everyone sort of question, was OpenAi the final answer? Would the incumbents, the Microsofts, the Googles, or the Amazons that have all made massive investments win?”

He stressed that the large language models were increasingly “becoming commoditized” as developers look to drive down costs and improve access to users.

“As we see this more efficiency, this cost coming down, we’re also going to see use going off. The training era, which is what Nvidia really built its initial AI boom off, was a big moment,” Newman said. “But the inference, the consumption of AI, is really the future and this is going to exponentially increase that volume.”