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Fed’s Fifth District economy expands slightly
The economy in the Federal Reserve‘s Fifth District (a multistate region including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland) has expanded slightly since October, according to the latest edition of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, released Wednesday. Published eight times per year, the Beige Book is based on anecdotal information about economic conditions g[...]
Mortgage rates above 7% shock volatile housing market
Charlottesville Realtor Denise Ramey has a client who put in multiple bids for houses over the summer, when the market was booming, but they were all turned down. Now, with mortgage rates topping 7% for the first time in more than 20 years, he’s not sure if he will buy a house at all — […]
Keeping watch
The question of the quarter: Are we entering a recession? One key indicator of a future recession can be inflation, which hit a 40-year high this year. Between June 2021 and June 2022, the consumer price index increased by 9.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the first tangible signs for […]
Barkin: Inflation high, but Fed has tools to contain it
Tom Barkin agrees — inflation is too high. But he also says the Fed has the authority to get it back on the right track. That’s what the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond told the Richmond chapter of the Risk Management Association on Tuesday at Triple Crossing Beer, a brewery […]
Rising interest rates not enough to deter homebuyers
Even the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates likely won’t be enough to cool down the hot real estate market in Virginia, experts say. In an attempt to slow the highest inflation rates in 40 years, Fed officials voted on March 16 to raise the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point to a […]
Fed still likely to raise rates, despite Russia-Ukraine conflict
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President and CEO Thomas Barkin said Thursday that he hopes to bring interest rates up to pre-pandemic levels “relatively quickly,” while noting that it’s hard to predict the future effect of the geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine on the nation’s economy. Speaking at a luncheon in Colonial Heights hosted […]
