• The Federal Reserve’s push to increase interest rates is starting to affect the housing market. With the average 30-year mortgage now at 5.1% (up from 3.1% at the start of the year) less people are looking to buy homes. Sales of newly built homes dropped 16.6% in one month. As a result, less builders are looking to continue constructing homes, which is part of the reason lumber prices have fallen 52% since their peak last March.
• 10% of all the companies that went public through a SPAC (Special-Purpose Acquisition Company) in 2020 and 2021 have issued “going-concern warnings” to investors, which indicate that they are likely to go bankrupt within the next year. Additionally, the stock price of all companies that listed through SPACs in 2021 were down an average of 59.5% as of last week.
• Last week two-thirds of the stocks in the S&P500 index were trading more than 20% below their all-time highs. As a result, of this price drop the stock market’s price/earnings multiple dropped from 21x at its peak to a more reasonable 16.5x. Some analysts think stocks could fall further since earnings estimates have not been meaningfully revised downward as they often are entering into a recessionary period. 
• The volume of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has dropped 33% in the first half of 2022 compared to last year. This will directly impact banks with the largest investment banking divisions. For example, JPMorgan announced that it expects second quarter revenue for its investment-banking division to drop 45% compared to 2021.