Monetary policy affects interest rates, which affect mortgages, which affect decisions in the housing market. The red line in the graph is the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (right axis) from July 1974 to July 2020. The blue line in the graph is the ratio of housing starts built by contractors over housing starts built by…
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There are numerous businesses starting to reopen and recover from the past months of slow or no business. Sales are starting to rise as customers are starting a buy again, both of which are great signs for a business recovery and business growth. Now let us talk about the difference between a business’s recovery and…
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The chart shows producer price index (PPI) data that measure price changes. Percent changes in prices from a year ago are shown for both stand-alone hotels (the gold bar) and hotels attached to casinos (the red bar). Prices began dropping for hotels in February 2020 and the price reductions continue to persist, but hotels attached…
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We have all attended a meeting, whether it be an Executive Staff meeting or an important business meeting, where you have sat in the chair for hours and leave the meeting feeling like it was a colossal waste of your time. What makes you leave those types of meetings feeling as if you would…
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The total assets held by the Federal Reserve include Treasury securities, Mortgage Backed Securities, and Repurchase agreements, in addition to other assets. As of September 2, 2020, the Federal Reserve had total assets of $7,017,492 (in millions of dollars) and as of September 4, 2019, the Federal Reserve had total assets of $3,761,508 (in millions…
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A Strategic Plan is about communicating financial and operational objectives by taking numbers and converting them to words. The reason for Strategic Planning is to implement a plan of action that will make the business’s Vision/Strategic Plan a reality. Strategic Planning is the actual process of implementing a Strategic Plan that has set obtainable and…
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In the past six months, businesses have been making numerous short-term decisions that can have long term operational benefits. The key is to evaluate and operationalize these short-term decisions to provide long term benefits to the business operations. The fact is that almost all businesses during the past six months have been forced to do…
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At any point in time during a year a business may need to revise their annual budget or forecasting models and processes. The Differences Between Budgeting and Forecasting Budgeting is a planning process that is done on an annual basis to help the executive management team define what they want the business to achieve during…
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The economy is in flux, interest rates have increased over the past year and lenders are starting to be less flexible on their loan covenants. Business executives need to be completely aware of their business’s financial condition, especially how leveraged the balance sheet is and loan covenants that relate to the debt on the balance…
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The first minimum wage rate was established in the United States with The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the initial minimum wage was $0.25 cents per hour. This chart shows Federal minimum wage from 1968, which was $1.60 per hour, to January 1, 2019 where the Federal minimum wage is now $7.25 per…
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