Marketbites: Fed Releases Monetary Policy Insights
MARKET PERFORMANCE:
Portfolio Manager Commentary:
The markets slid on Wednesday as Wall Street resumed a holiday-shortened week. Investors parsed minutes from the June 13-14 Fed meeting released Wednesday afternoon, in which most officials indicated further interest rate hikes could lie ahead. The minutes gave Wall Street additional context to the central bank’s decision to skip a rate increase at the June meeting. “There’s no question that Fed rate hike policy continues to drive investors’ thoughts related to the second half of the year’s market trajectory and economic trajectory,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO of AXS Investments.
Investors are coming off a positive session Monday, which kicked off the start of a new month, quarter and half-year for traders. Markets closed early on Monday and were completely dark on Tuesday for the Fourth of July holiday. Those gains built on a strong start to the year. Last week, the Nasdaq closed out its best first half of the year since 1983, while the S&P 500 notched its best first-half advance since 2019, as a surge in interest in artificial intelligence buoyed investor optimism in stocks.
Chart of the Day:
Many office buildings sit mostly empty. Once-soaring apartment-rent growth has slowed and is falling in some places. But housing geared to college students at popular schools is a rare bright spot in the beleaguered commercial real-estate business.
Rents for student housing are poised to grow, boosted by limited supply and strong demand at many colleges, especially top research universities and schools in the five highest-earning athletic conferences for U.S. college football. However, with college enrollment declining overall, student housing is facing higher risks at smaller colleges with less name recognition and falling enrollment. Despite the rise in mortgage rates last year, sales of student-housing property reached a record of $22.9 billion in 2022, according to data from commercial real-estate firm CBRE Group.
Source: WSJ
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