What we’re reading (9/14)
“The Fed Could Crash The Housing Market” (CNN Business). “One area of growing concern: housing. Interest rate hikes can lead to higher mortgage rates, which could cause people to think twice about buying a home. So far, sales are slipping, while prices are holding steady. But some economists warn continued historic rate hikes by the Fed could risk crashing the housing market, underscoring the difficult task ahead for the central bank.”
“U.S. Mortgage Interest Rates Top 6% For First Time Since 2008” (Reuters). “The average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan rose above 6% for the first time since 2008 and is now more than double the level it was one year ago, Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) data showed on Wednesday.”
“Crypto Investors Step Up Bets Against Ether As ‘Merge’ Looms” (Wall Street Journal). “Investors ramped up their bets against ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, on the eve of the Ethereum network’s big software upgrade slated for early Thursday morning. The cost of holding a short position—a bet that ether’s value will fall—in the perpetual futures market has risen ahead of the upgrade, a sign that investors are increasingly hedging their risk going into the network update. So-called funding rates for ether perpetual futures, a kind of futures contract that doesn’t have an expiry date, have been negative for more than a month, meaning that traders are paying a premium for pessimistic bets.”
“Google Cancels Half The Projects At Its Internal R&D Group Area 120” (TechCrunch). “The company on Tuesday informed staff of a ‘reduction in force’ that will see the incubator halved in size, as half the teams working on new product innovations heard their projects were being canceled. Previously, there were 14 projects housed in Area 120, and this has been cut down to just seven. Employees whose projects will not continue were told they’ll need to find a new job within Google by the end of January 2023, or they’ll be terminated. It’s not clear that everyone will be able to do so.”
“Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away The Company” (New York Times). “In mid-2020, Mr. Chouinard began telling his closest advisers, including Ryan Gellert, the company’s chief executive, that if they couldn’t find a good alternative, he was prepared to sell the company. ‘One day he said to me, ‘Ryan, I swear to God, if you guys don’t start moving on this, I’m going to go get the Fortune magazine list of billionaires and start cold calling people,’’ Mr. Gellert said. ‘At that point we realized he was serious.’ […] ‘I don’t respect the stock market at all,’ he [Mr. Chouinard] said. ‘Once you’re public, you’ve lost control over the company, and you have to maximize profits for the shareholder, and then you become one of these irresponsible companies.’ They also considered simply leaving the company to Fletcher and Claire. But even that option didn’t work, because the children didn’t want the company.”
