Major Indexes Open Higher After Sell-Off; Nasdaq, S&P 500 Poised for Weekly Losses; Bitcoin Sinks Near $60,000 Before Rebounding

What If a Housing Shortage Isn’t the Reason Homes Are So Expensive?

FROM 21 minutes ago

A new analysis from researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco challenges the common assumption that homes have gotten more expensive because too few have been built.

The analysis published this week, showed that cities across the country have built housing faster than their populations have grown and that home prices tend to rise alongside income. Indeed, the housing supply grew faster than the population even in expensive markets like San Francisco. In other words, rising incomes, not a shortage of housing, could be fueling the soaring cost of houses.

The research by a team led by Schulyer Louie, a doctoral student at the University of California Irvine, sheds new light on the causes of the housing affordability crisis and has implications for how policymakers should address it. With rent and home-ownership costs soaring relative to typical incomes, politicians from both major parties are looking for ways to bring those costs down. But the problem may have less to do with too few homes being built and more to do with high-income earners bidding prices out of reach of everyone else.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly Shares Rebound as FDA Commissioner Says Agency Will Take Action Against ‘Illegal Copycat Drugs’

FROM 53 minutes ago

Yesterday, shares of Eli Lilly (LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NVO) sank about 8% apiece after Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) said it would begin selling a lower-priced, compounded weight-loss pill. A social media post by the head of the Food and Drug Administration has sent them surging a day later.

U.S.-listed shares of Danish firm Novo Nordisk jumped 7.5% and Eli Lilly stock advanced 3.5% before the bell after FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary wrote on X that the agency “will take swift action against companies mass-marketing illegal copycat drugs, claiming they are similar to FDA-approved products.”

Hims & Hers stock, which initially surged close to 14% yesterday before reversing course to finish nearly 4% lower, dropped a further 7% early Friday.

Hims & Hers said its new pill starts at $49 per month for five months, and comes with the same active ingredient as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, which received FDA approval in December and costs $149 for self-pay patients, according to the company’s website.

“The FDA cannot verify the quality, safety, or effectiveness of non-approved drugs,” Dr. Makary added.

Rubbermaid Parent Newell Brands Stock Sinks on Soft Q1 Forecasts

FROM 1 hr 57 min ago

Newell Brands (NWL) posted solid fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results. Its current-quarter forecasts left investors underwhelmed.

The Rubbermaid and Sharpie parent’s stock sank 12% before the bell Friday after the company issued soft fiscal 2026 first-quarter guidance.

The Atlanta-based firm reported Q4 normalized, or adjusted, earnings per share of $0.18 on revenue that declined nearly 3% year-over-year to $1.90 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $0.18 and $1.88 billion, respectively.

However, Newell Brands projected a current-quarter normalized loss per share of $0.08 to $0.12, wider than analysts’ expected loss per share of $0.03. It also sees a 3% to 5% Q1 sales drop, bigger than the consensus 1.6% decline.

Shares of Newell Brands, which said current-quarter sales are “expected to be negatively impacted by shipment timing dynamics rather than underlying consumer demand,” entered Friday having lost more than half their value over the last year.

Is Now the Time to Load Up on Bonds? Vanguard Thinks So

FROM 2 hr 37 min ago

The 60/40 portfolio is back. Or is it the 40/60 portfolio? 

“It might be time to skew your portfolio more to the bond side versus U.S. equities,” said Gregory Davis, President and chief investment officer at Vanguard, in an appearance on CNBC Thursday.

 “You have a 10-year [yield] that’s at 4.2%. You’re picking up a nice premium relative to where inflation is today,” said Davis. “It’s the first time in almost a decade where you’re actually earning a real yield when it comes to investing in bonds.”

Treasury yields languished at historic lows following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and fell even further when the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates in response to Covid-19. Soaring inflation in 2022 forced the Federal Reserve to aggressively hike rates, driving bond yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note topped 4% for the first time since 2008 in September 2022, and has stayed above that threshold for most of the past three years. 

In that time, the stock market has been on a tear. The S&P 500 is up about 90% since the current bull market began in October 2022. Booming investment in artificial intelligence has fueled three consecutive years of double-digit returns for the benchmark index. 

But the market’s exceptional performance in recent years could be a double-edged sword. U.S. stocks “have been overvalued for some time,” said Davis on Wednesday. That’s one of the reasons he expects the return on stocks and bonds to be “pretty comparable” over the next decade. Vanguard predicted mid-single-digit stock returns over the next decade in its 2026 market preview. Goldman Sachs analysts issued a similar forecast a year earlier. 

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Stock Futures Point Higher After Sell-Off

FROM 3 hr 14 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.4%.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.6%.

Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.7%.