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EndGame Macro
A Market Held Hostage And Why Pending Sales Are Stuck at 25 Year Lows
This chart makes something obvious that headlines still dance around: the housing market isn’t cooling…it’s stuck. Pending home sales are sitting near the lowest levels in almost 25 years and running close to 30% below what used to be normal. And it’s not a quick dip or a temporary shock. The line has been pinned down here for nearly two years. That’s the signature of a market where the problem isn’t demand or supply in isolation but more so a breakdown in the ability of buyers and sellers to meet at the same price. For most of the 2000s and 2010s, pending sales stayed in a tight band. Even after the financial crisis, once rates fell and the economy healed, buyers came back and contract volume snapped toward normal. This time is different. The market spiked during the 2–3% mortgage era and then flipped straight into a deep freeze as financing costs doubled. That freeze has barely budged.
The Airbnb Overhang and Seller Psychology
Part of the distortion comes from the short term rental boom that exploded during COVID. A lot of people bought second homes on 2–3% mortgages based on assumptions that only made sense in 2021. Demand was off the charts, nightly rates were inflated, and occupancy felt endless. Now the economics look very different. STR supply has surged, travel patterns have normalized, fees are higher, and local regulations tightened. A meaningful share of those owners would love to exit but can’t accept that their numbers no longer pencil at today’s 6–7% borrowing costs. They anchor to the price they paid or the peak listing they saw down the street. Meanwhile, any new buyer has to size the same property at a monthly payment that is dramatically higher, which means the price would have to fall to make the math work. Sellers won’t move, buyers can’t reach, and the result is almost no contract activity, exactly what this chart captures.
What Pending Sales Tell Us About the Cycle
Pending home sales are the purest read on housing because they show real agreements, not listings or intentions. And right now they’re telling you the market is gridlocked. We get moments where mortgage applications tick higher when rates dip, especially among FHA and VA buyers looking for any opening, but the MBA data makes it clear those surges are coming off historically depressed baselines. Affordability is still stretched, credit standards are tightening, delinquencies are rising, and younger buyers, usually the engine of first time home demand are dealing with higher unemployment and falling credit scores. That combination is not how durable recoveries start.
If rates fall meaningfully or if unemployment rises enough to force more realistic pricing from owners, the freeze eventually breaks. But until then, we’re living in a market where the fundamental desire to own a home is still there, it’s just trapped inside a price to payment mismatch that neither side can solve on their own. This chart doesn’t just show a slowdown; it shows a housing market holding its breath, waiting for the next catalyst to decide which direction this cycle goes.
Chart credit: Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1)
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A Market Held Hostage And Why Pending Sales Are Stuck at 25 Year Lows
This chart makes something obvious that headlines still dance around: the housing market isn’t cooling…it’s stuck. Pending home sales are sitting near the lowest levels in almost 25 years and running close to 30% below what used to be normal. And it’s not a quick dip or a temporary shock. The line has been pinned down here for nearly two years. That’s the signature of a market where the problem isn’t demand or supply in isolation but more so a breakdown in the ability of buyers and sellers to meet at the same price. For most of the 2000s and 2010s, pending sales stayed in a tight band. Even after the financial crisis, once rates fell and the economy healed, buyers came back and contract volume snapped toward normal. This time is different. The market spiked during the 2–3% mortgage era and then flipped straight into a deep freeze as financing costs doubled. That freeze has barely budged.
The Airbnb Overhang and Seller Psychology
Part of the distortion comes from the short term rental boom that exploded during COVID. A lot of people bought second homes on 2–3% mortgages based on assumptions that only made sense in 2021. Demand was off the charts, nightly rates were inflated, and occupancy felt endless. Now the economics look very different. STR supply has surged, travel patterns have normalized, fees are higher, and local regulations tightened. A meaningful share of those owners would love to exit but can’t accept that their numbers no longer pencil at today’s 6–7% borrowing costs. They anchor to the price they paid or the peak listing they saw down the street. Meanwhile, any new buyer has to size the same property at a monthly payment that is dramatically higher, which means the price would have to fall to make the math work. Sellers won’t move, buyers can’t reach, and the result is almost no contract activity, exactly what this chart captures.
What Pending Sales Tell Us About the Cycle
Pending home sales are the purest read on housing because they show real agreements, not listings or intentions. And right now they’re telling you the market is gridlocked. We get moments where mortgage applications tick higher when rates dip, especially among FHA and VA buyers looking for any opening, but the MBA data makes it clear those surges are coming off historically depressed baselines. Affordability is still stretched, credit standards are tightening, delinquencies are rising, and younger buyers, usually the engine of first time home demand are dealing with higher unemployment and falling credit scores. That combination is not how durable recoveries start.
If rates fall meaningfully or if unemployment rises enough to force more realistic pricing from owners, the freeze eventually breaks. But until then, we’re living in a market where the fundamental desire to own a home is still there, it’s just trapped inside a price to payment mismatch that neither side can solve on their own. This chart doesn’t just show a slowdown; it shows a housing market holding its breath, waiting for the next catalyst to decide which direction this cycle goes.
Chart credit: Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1)
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Offshore
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EndGame Macro
Chicago Business Barometer: When a 36 Reading Says the Cycle Is Turning
The Chicago business survey isn’t subtle this month. The index fell to 36.3, which is deep contraction territory. You don’t see numbers in the 30s unless something is genuinely weakening under the surface. They’re also reminding us that Chicago has now spent two straight years below 50, meaning two full years of shrinking activity. That’s not a blip or a mood swing, that’s a trend.
What makes this more important is what’s happening inside the report. New orders dropped sharply, backlogs collapsed to levels we haven’t seen since the aftermath of the financial crisis, and employment softened again. When orders dry up and backlogs evaporate at the same time, businesses usually do the same thing: cut output and slow hiring. That’s exactly what you would expect to see late in a cycle when demand starts slipping.
How It Fits With the Bigger Picture
Step back and connect it to everything else going on. Household credit is cracking at the edges with auto loans, credit cards, and student loans are seeing rising delinquencies. Credit rejection rates are high. Pending home sales are sitting near 25 year lows despite the population being much larger than it was two decades ago. Mortgage activity is bouncing around in that fragile, rate sensitive way you only get when affordability is stretched and buyers are trying to catch falling financing costs.
At the same time, the Fed has already cut rates twice, QT is hours from turning off, new Treasury purchases kick in next month, and regulators are loosening capital rules to give big banks room to absorb more Treasuries and keep liquidity flowing. These aren’t decisions you make when you think the economy is strong. They’re decisions you make when you see the slowdown building and want to make sure the plumbing doesn’t seize up.
Now add a major regional business survey screaming contraction. Chicago often leads turning points in national activity. When it’s printing mid 30s and doing it consistently, it usually means the broader economy is losing momentum.
My Read on What’s Really Happening
The economy isn’t falling off a cliff, but it’s not healthy either. What we’re seeing is stress accumulating in multiple places: households stretched by inflation and debt costs, housing frozen by affordability, banks tightening credit, and now business activity in one of the country’s economic hubs slipping into a deeper contraction.
My conviction is that this is the beginning of a steady weakening that eventually shows up in national employment numbers and corporate earnings. The Fed sees it, the credit markets feel it, and now the business surveys are reflecting it.
This report doesn’t tell you the end is near. It tells you the turn is already happening…quietly, steadily, and in a way that the surface level resilience stories can’t fully hide.
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Chicago Business Barometer: When a 36 Reading Says the Cycle Is Turning
The Chicago business survey isn’t subtle this month. The index fell to 36.3, which is deep contraction territory. You don’t see numbers in the 30s unless something is genuinely weakening under the surface. They’re also reminding us that Chicago has now spent two straight years below 50, meaning two full years of shrinking activity. That’s not a blip or a mood swing, that’s a trend.
What makes this more important is what’s happening inside the report. New orders dropped sharply, backlogs collapsed to levels we haven’t seen since the aftermath of the financial crisis, and employment softened again. When orders dry up and backlogs evaporate at the same time, businesses usually do the same thing: cut output and slow hiring. That’s exactly what you would expect to see late in a cycle when demand starts slipping.
How It Fits With the Bigger Picture
Step back and connect it to everything else going on. Household credit is cracking at the edges with auto loans, credit cards, and student loans are seeing rising delinquencies. Credit rejection rates are high. Pending home sales are sitting near 25 year lows despite the population being much larger than it was two decades ago. Mortgage activity is bouncing around in that fragile, rate sensitive way you only get when affordability is stretched and buyers are trying to catch falling financing costs.
At the same time, the Fed has already cut rates twice, QT is hours from turning off, new Treasury purchases kick in next month, and regulators are loosening capital rules to give big banks room to absorb more Treasuries and keep liquidity flowing. These aren’t decisions you make when you think the economy is strong. They’re decisions you make when you see the slowdown building and want to make sure the plumbing doesn’t seize up.
Now add a major regional business survey screaming contraction. Chicago often leads turning points in national activity. When it’s printing mid 30s and doing it consistently, it usually means the broader economy is losing momentum.
My Read on What’s Really Happening
The economy isn’t falling off a cliff, but it’s not healthy either. What we’re seeing is stress accumulating in multiple places: households stretched by inflation and debt costs, housing frozen by affordability, banks tightening credit, and now business activity in one of the country’s economic hubs slipping into a deeper contraction.
My conviction is that this is the beginning of a steady weakening that eventually shows up in national employment numbers and corporate earnings. The Fed sees it, the credit markets feel it, and now the business surveys are reflecting it.
This report doesn’t tell you the end is near. It tells you the turn is already happening…quietly, steadily, and in a way that the surface level resilience stories can’t fully hide.
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Offshore
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Quiver Quantitative
JUST IN: Senator Tina Smith has sold her position in Huntington Bank stock, $HBAN.
She sold it for up to $250K.
Smith sits on the Senate Committee on Banking. https://t.co/zWnOkoIIDP
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JUST IN: Senator Tina Smith has sold her position in Huntington Bank stock, $HBAN.
She sold it for up to $250K.
Smith sits on the Senate Committee on Banking. https://t.co/zWnOkoIIDP
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AkhenOsiris
This account is hardcore macro bear 🐻 porn every night 😂
Is Kolanovic running this on evenings?
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This account is hardcore macro bear 🐻 porn every night 😂
Is Kolanovic running this on evenings?
US FORWARD-LOOKING INDICATORS SUGGEST A FURTHER DECLINE IN JOBS:
WEAK CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE LABOR MARKET AND FALLING SERVICES & MANUFACTURING PMI EMPLOYMENT INDEXES SIGNAL A DROP IN U.S. PAYROLLS IN THE COMING MONTHS. tweet
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EndGame Macro
When the Bell Curve Peaks: Why M2 Velocity Has a 0% Chance of Spiking Back Up
M2 velocity measures how often each dollar actually moves through the economy. When velocity rises, people feel secure enough to spend. When it falls, they sit on cash. And across the last sixty years, the pattern is almost perfect: velocity climbs during expansions, forms a rounded top, then rolls over when the cycle weakens. Every major peak has lined up with tighter policy, fading demand, or a recession.
The long chart breaks into eras. Before 2000, velocity generally trended higher, money circulated freely and wasn’t trapped in deposits or reserves. After 2000, especially post 2008, the slope turned down as QE caused M2 to balloon faster than nominal GDP. By the time COVID arrived, velocity sat near multi decade lows. Then the pandemic hit and velocity collapsed toward 1.1 as stimulus flooded accounts while spending froze.
The Rebound And The Stall
The rebound after 2020 wasn’t economic strength, it was the mechanical effect of reopening. Nominal GDP jumped thanks to inflation and pent up demand, while M2 stopped growing and even shrank as emergency programs ended and QT drained deposits. With GDP rising and the money stock flat, velocity moved up.
But now it has stalled in the high 1.3s well below the 1.5–1.8 range of the pre 2008 world. That plateau is the real tell. Households have burned through savings to keep up with higher prices and debt costs. Businesses used their buffers to defend margins. The easy gains from stimulus are over.
And historically, once velocity forms a bell curve top and flattens, it never spikes back to new highs. If you translate the entire 65 year history into a probability question of how often does velocity top, roll over, and then surge again? the answer is essentially 0%. Four major tops in early 70s, mid 80s, early 90s, and the dot com peak, all rolled into secular declines. You get small bumps, never new peaks.
Even the post COVID rebound, the biggest pop since the 80s, only took velocity to 1.39 still far below past levels. It wasn’t a breakout; it was a partial recovery from an unprecedented collapse. So the historical odds of a real spike after a rollover are effectively 0%, or at most 5% if you stretch the definition to include brief counter trend moves.
What Happens Next And Why The Lag Matters
Liquidity shifts don’t hit the real economy immediately. There’s a lag often 18 to 24 months between changes in velocity and changes in spending, hiring, and earnings. Rising velocity can cover up stress for a while because households are still drawing down savings. But once those buffers fade, the slowdown shows up quickly: rising delinquencies, weakening surveys, frozen housing activity, and softer job growth. That’s the pattern emerging now.
My view is that this plateau in velocity is a classic late cycle marker, the end of the stimulus driven rebound, not the beginning of a new expansion. If velocity rolls over while M2 stays flat or declines, nominal demand cools. When nominal demand cools, earnings weaken and unemployment follows.
Could policymakers push M2 up again and force another lift in velocity? Yes and aggressive easing and large fiscal spending can recreate something like 2020–22. But because of that 18–24 month lag, the inflationary consequences would show up long after the policy decisions are made. That’s exactly how the last inflation spike formed.
Velocity isn’t saying the economy is back. It’s saying the liquidity tailwind is gone, the money supply isn’t doing the heavy lifting anymore, and what comes next will depend on incomes, jobs, and credit not leftover stimulus. History is blunt: once velocity tops, the rollover is the beginning of the real story, not a setup for another spike.
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When the Bell Curve Peaks: Why M2 Velocity Has a 0% Chance of Spiking Back Up
M2 velocity measures how often each dollar actually moves through the economy. When velocity rises, people feel secure enough to spend. When it falls, they sit on cash. And across the last sixty years, the pattern is almost perfect: velocity climbs during expansions, forms a rounded top, then rolls over when the cycle weakens. Every major peak has lined up with tighter policy, fading demand, or a recession.
The long chart breaks into eras. Before 2000, velocity generally trended higher, money circulated freely and wasn’t trapped in deposits or reserves. After 2000, especially post 2008, the slope turned down as QE caused M2 to balloon faster than nominal GDP. By the time COVID arrived, velocity sat near multi decade lows. Then the pandemic hit and velocity collapsed toward 1.1 as stimulus flooded accounts while spending froze.
The Rebound And The Stall
The rebound after 2020 wasn’t economic strength, it was the mechanical effect of reopening. Nominal GDP jumped thanks to inflation and pent up demand, while M2 stopped growing and even shrank as emergency programs ended and QT drained deposits. With GDP rising and the money stock flat, velocity moved up.
But now it has stalled in the high 1.3s well below the 1.5–1.8 range of the pre 2008 world. That plateau is the real tell. Households have burned through savings to keep up with higher prices and debt costs. Businesses used their buffers to defend margins. The easy gains from stimulus are over.
And historically, once velocity forms a bell curve top and flattens, it never spikes back to new highs. If you translate the entire 65 year history into a probability question of how often does velocity top, roll over, and then surge again? the answer is essentially 0%. Four major tops in early 70s, mid 80s, early 90s, and the dot com peak, all rolled into secular declines. You get small bumps, never new peaks.
Even the post COVID rebound, the biggest pop since the 80s, only took velocity to 1.39 still far below past levels. It wasn’t a breakout; it was a partial recovery from an unprecedented collapse. So the historical odds of a real spike after a rollover are effectively 0%, or at most 5% if you stretch the definition to include brief counter trend moves.
What Happens Next And Why The Lag Matters
Liquidity shifts don’t hit the real economy immediately. There’s a lag often 18 to 24 months between changes in velocity and changes in spending, hiring, and earnings. Rising velocity can cover up stress for a while because households are still drawing down savings. But once those buffers fade, the slowdown shows up quickly: rising delinquencies, weakening surveys, frozen housing activity, and softer job growth. That’s the pattern emerging now.
My view is that this plateau in velocity is a classic late cycle marker, the end of the stimulus driven rebound, not the beginning of a new expansion. If velocity rolls over while M2 stays flat or declines, nominal demand cools. When nominal demand cools, earnings weaken and unemployment follows.
Could policymakers push M2 up again and force another lift in velocity? Yes and aggressive easing and large fiscal spending can recreate something like 2020–22. But because of that 18–24 month lag, the inflationary consequences would show up long after the policy decisions are made. That’s exactly how the last inflation spike formed.
Velocity isn’t saying the economy is back. It’s saying the liquidity tailwind is gone, the money supply isn’t doing the heavy lifting anymore, and what comes next will depend on incomes, jobs, and credit not leftover stimulus. History is blunt: once velocity tops, the rollover is the beginning of the real story, not a setup for another spike.
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AkhenOsiris
AI Shopping sucks so far pt. 2
https://t.co/n2BSfH4gZN
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AI Shopping sucks so far pt. 2
https://t.co/n2BSfH4gZN
AI shopping sucks so far:
https://t.co/0Z01P1KErs tweet
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EndGame Macro
The BIS View on Tokenisation And What It Really Means
When people hear the word tokenisation, it can sound like another buzzword from the tech world. But when the Bank for International Settlements pays attention to something, it’s because it’s starting to matter for the actual financial plumbing. And their analysis of tokenised real estate is surprisingly grounded. This isn’t about hype. It’s about how ownership, credit, and liquidity are beginning to shift beneath the surface.
Where Tokenisation Is Emerging
The BIS points out that tokenised real estate doesn’t show up in luxury markets or high profile cities. Instead, it appears in the places traditional finance doesn’t serve well, neighborhoods with lower home prices, slower sales, fewer bank branches, and higher mortgage rates. These are areas where bank credit is scarce, where homes sit longer on the market, and where a little extra liquidity can make a real difference.
Their disaster analysis makes the pattern even clearer. After events like hurricanes or floods, trading in tokenised properties spikes sharply but only if the platform offers a buyback option. Where no buyback exists, liquidity gets worse. What this reveals is simple: tokenisation can create liquidity, but only because the platform itself steps in like a tiny balance sheet. It’s not magic. It’s a new type of intermediary taking on risk banks once carried.
In the BIS’s view, tokenisation is really just fractional ownership wrapped in 24/7 markets, supported by platforms that behave more like shadow banks than tech companies.
Where the BIS Thinks This Leads
If you zoom out, you can see why they’re focused on this. We’re entering a world shaped by aging populations, slower growth, and more cautious banks. At the same time, blockchain rails make it cheap to split assets into thousands of small pieces and let people trade them globally. Combine those forces and the BIS sees real estate evolving toward something like a streamable asset, a property divided into tokens, rent paid automatically through smart contracts, and secondary trading that looks more like equities than traditional housing transactions.
They also see tokenisation platforms gradually taking on bank like roles. If a platform promises to buy back tokens during stress, it becomes responsible for providing liquidity when everyone else pulls back. That’s exactly how shadow banks behave. And once the market becomes large enough to matter, regulators will follow. Liquidity backstops will be scrutinized. Disclosures will tighten. Capital requirements will appear. The BIS is already hinting that these platforms won’t be allowed to operate in a regulatory vacuum forever.
Over time, tokenised assets could become collateral in lending markets as well. That means leverage…margin loans, rehypothecation, structured products built on top of tokenised ownership. What begins as access becomes a new credit channel.
My Read on What’s Ahead
If you take away the jargon, the BIS is basically saying that tokenisation isn’t a fad. It solves real problems: slow settlement, high minimum investment sizes, geographic barriers, and the lack of financing in places banks no longer want to serve. That’s why it’s growing. And that’s why it’s going to keep growing.
The tradeoff is complexity. Tokenisation moves risk from banks into new platforms that haven’t been tested by a major downturn. Liquidity looks great on the way up, but only because the platform is often standing in the middle absorbing volatility. That works until it doesn’t.
Still, the direction is clear. Tokenisation will expand access, reshape who provides credit, and shift who owns the income streams of the physical world. The BIS isn’t predicting a dramatic revolution. They’re describing a quiet rewiring and that rewiring is already underway.
Does real estate #Tokenisation fill gaps in traditional markets? New research shows it enhances access to real estate and liquidity during shocks, but o[...]
The BIS View on Tokenisation And What It Really Means
When people hear the word tokenisation, it can sound like another buzzword from the tech world. But when the Bank for International Settlements pays attention to something, it’s because it’s starting to matter for the actual financial plumbing. And their analysis of tokenised real estate is surprisingly grounded. This isn’t about hype. It’s about how ownership, credit, and liquidity are beginning to shift beneath the surface.
Where Tokenisation Is Emerging
The BIS points out that tokenised real estate doesn’t show up in luxury markets or high profile cities. Instead, it appears in the places traditional finance doesn’t serve well, neighborhoods with lower home prices, slower sales, fewer bank branches, and higher mortgage rates. These are areas where bank credit is scarce, where homes sit longer on the market, and where a little extra liquidity can make a real difference.
Their disaster analysis makes the pattern even clearer. After events like hurricanes or floods, trading in tokenised properties spikes sharply but only if the platform offers a buyback option. Where no buyback exists, liquidity gets worse. What this reveals is simple: tokenisation can create liquidity, but only because the platform itself steps in like a tiny balance sheet. It’s not magic. It’s a new type of intermediary taking on risk banks once carried.
In the BIS’s view, tokenisation is really just fractional ownership wrapped in 24/7 markets, supported by platforms that behave more like shadow banks than tech companies.
Where the BIS Thinks This Leads
If you zoom out, you can see why they’re focused on this. We’re entering a world shaped by aging populations, slower growth, and more cautious banks. At the same time, blockchain rails make it cheap to split assets into thousands of small pieces and let people trade them globally. Combine those forces and the BIS sees real estate evolving toward something like a streamable asset, a property divided into tokens, rent paid automatically through smart contracts, and secondary trading that looks more like equities than traditional housing transactions.
They also see tokenisation platforms gradually taking on bank like roles. If a platform promises to buy back tokens during stress, it becomes responsible for providing liquidity when everyone else pulls back. That’s exactly how shadow banks behave. And once the market becomes large enough to matter, regulators will follow. Liquidity backstops will be scrutinized. Disclosures will tighten. Capital requirements will appear. The BIS is already hinting that these platforms won’t be allowed to operate in a regulatory vacuum forever.
Over time, tokenised assets could become collateral in lending markets as well. That means leverage…margin loans, rehypothecation, structured products built on top of tokenised ownership. What begins as access becomes a new credit channel.
My Read on What’s Ahead
If you take away the jargon, the BIS is basically saying that tokenisation isn’t a fad. It solves real problems: slow settlement, high minimum investment sizes, geographic barriers, and the lack of financing in places banks no longer want to serve. That’s why it’s growing. And that’s why it’s going to keep growing.
The tradeoff is complexity. Tokenisation moves risk from banks into new platforms that haven’t been tested by a major downturn. Liquidity looks great on the way up, but only because the platform is often standing in the middle absorbing volatility. That works until it doesn’t.
Still, the direction is clear. Tokenisation will expand access, reshape who provides credit, and shift who owns the income streams of the physical world. The BIS isn’t predicting a dramatic revolution. They’re describing a quiet rewiring and that rewiring is already underway.
Does real estate #Tokenisation fill gaps in traditional markets? New research shows it enhances access to real estate and liquidity during shocks, but o[...]
Offshore
EndGame Macro The BIS View on Tokenisation And What It Really Means When people hear the word tokenisation, it can sound like another buzzword from the tech world. But when the Bank for International Settlements pays attention to something, it’s because it’s…
nly when platforms offer buyback features, which come at the cost of higher insolvency risk. https://t.co/Pb99Ojb6sD https://t.co/zxKsHjwVHI - Bank for International Settlements tweet
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Quartr
Chances are you come across this company's products every day. Yet, over its 150-year history, Ball has reinvented itself many times.
Here are five visuals from our Ball deep dive:
1. The lifecycle of an aluminum can: https://t.co/xlWCT1IeOt
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Chances are you come across this company's products every day. Yet, over its 150-year history, Ball has reinvented itself many times.
Here are five visuals from our Ball deep dive:
1. The lifecycle of an aluminum can: https://t.co/xlWCT1IeOt
tweet