Interest-rate futures indicated last week a roughly 60% chance the Fed will lower rates by a quarter-of-a-percentage point by its May 2024 policy meeting, up from 29% at the end of October.
The University of Michigan’s sentiment index, based on a long-running survey of households, remains far below prepandemic levels and lately has been near levels experienced in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Another bid by Choice Hotels to strike a deal with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has fallen flat. After months of on-and-off talks for a deal that would unite two of the biggest budget hotel owners in the country, Wyndham’s board received a letter from Choice to restart negotiations and strike a deal with Wyndham before the end of the year. Choice hasn’t boosted its cash-and-stock offer, currently worth $86 a share. That is down from $90 given a decline in Choice shares since the takeover offer was made in October. Wyndham views the offer as too low and worries it would saddle the combined company with too much debt.
In the first nine months of 2019, 88% of CMBS office loans were paid off when they matured. As interest rates and vacancies rose, that share dropped to 71% in the first nine months of 2022 and to just 31.2% this year.
About 58% of the total capital deployed by private credit managers globally is estimated to come from firms that lend more than $10 billion per year.
U.S. retail sales fell 0.1% in October from a month earlier, the first decline since March and comes after a 0.9% increase in September. From a year earlier, sales rose 2.5% in October, well slower than the pace of price increases.
Lenders this year have issued a record number of foreclosure notices for high-risk property loans. Commonly known as mezzanine loans, these loans have high interest rates and offer a faster and easier path to foreclose than mortgages. The current number of these high-risk loans is the highest total ever for a single year, as higher interest rates and rising vacancies punish the property sector.
The Trump International Hotel Waikiki, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is set to rebrand under Hilton’s luxury LXR Hotels & Resorts brand. The hotel will be renamed Wākea Waikiki Beach and managed by Hilton beginning in February 2024, after the property owner Irongate and Trump Hotels came to a “mutual agreement” to sever ties after a “significant buyout of the hotel management and license agreements.”