The Fed has said it: interest rates are coming down. Fed Chairman Jay Powell surprised markets in early December when he announced, somewhat unexpectedly, that the Fed was not planning to raise rates any further, and, in fact, was projecting three rate cuts in 2024 now that inflation has cooled. Surprisingly, the Fed’s quarterly economic projections released in December, the…
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Who Is Snapping Up All The Houses?
We are never-ending in our firm’s quest for up-to-the-minute data that we can analyze and then draw conclusions on how that data drives the construction aggregate market, and every now and then, we get tossed a big surprise that we did not expect. Take a recent, seminal report from a major investment bank that conducted a deep dive into the…
Read MoreThe Pulse: The Economy will Continue to Remain Steady
The economy will continue to remain steadily apace, interest rates will stabilize and possibly as early as sometime next year, look for another broad economic expansion that will be a boon to construction aggregates, according to the latest edition of The Pulse, the quarterly economic report from Allen-Villere Partners and Rock Products. The Pulse is the construction-materials industry’s premier economic…
Read MoreThe Pulse (Fourth Quarter 2023 Edition)
By Allen-Villere PartnersThe Pulse and the AVP Pulse Index, are joint projects between mergers-and-acquisition advisors Allen-Villere Partners, and Rock Products. The Pulse appears quarterly in Rock Products, and the AVP Pulse Index appears monthly. The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark rate 11 times to cool inflation, with the latest rate increase of 25- basis-points in July. This puts the federal funds target…
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