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    McDonald’s to launch McPlant nuggets made with Beyond Meat in Germany

    McDonald’s customers in Germany will be able to order plant-based McPlant nuggets starting Feb. 22.
    The nuggets are made from peas, corn, wheat and tempura breading.
    Rival Chick-fil-A announced it’s testing a cauliflower version of its chicken sandwich as it seeks to appeal to health-conscious customers.

    McDonald’s is adding its McPlant burger and nuggets to menus in Germany.
    Source: McDonald’s

    McDonald’s is expanding its McPlant line with another Beyond Meat item.
    The fast-food giant announced Wednesday that customers in Germany will be able to order plant-based McPlant Nuggets starting Feb. 22. McDonald’s, which has more than 1,400 locations in Germany, is also adding the McPlant burger to the country’s menu.

    The launch comes just days before the two-year anniversary of the companies announcing their three-year deal for Beyond to become the preferred patty supplier for McDonald’s McPlant burger. Since then, the burger has been permanently added to menus in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and now Germany.
    McDonald’s and Beyond worked together to create the new plant-based nuggets and tested them in nine restaurants in Stuttgart in August. The nuggets are made from peas, corn, wheat and tempura breading. Beyond has had a chicken substitute available in restaurants since mid-2021, when the company rolled out its revamped recipe.
    But it looks unlikely at this point that U.S. customers will get the chance to try the new McPlant Nuggets for themselves at the company’s roughly 14,000 domestic locations. McDonald’s and Beyond ended their U.S. test of the McPlant burger in 2022 and haven’t announced any plans for additional testing or a nationwide launch. BTIG analyst Peter Saleh wrote in a research note last June that the sales were disappointing.
    Rival Chick-fil-A announced last week it’s testing a cauliflower version of its chicken sandwich as it seeks to appeal to health-conscious customers.
    Shares of Beyond have shed nearly three-quarters of their value over the last year, dragging its market value down to $1.08 billion. Wall Street has become skeptical of the company’s long-term growth opportunities as grocery and restaurant sales lag. In October, Beyond said it would lay off roughly a fifth of its workforce.
    However, Beyond’s stock, which has experienced volatility ever since its public market debut in 2019, closed Wednesday up 12% prior to the announcement. The company is expected to report its fourth-quarter results on Feb. 23 after the bell.

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    Investors expect the economy to avoid recession

    With its trajectories, headwinds and tailwinds, the language of central banking abounds with aviation metaphors. Little surprise, then, that the policymaker’s most heroic feat is named after Apollo 11’s success in the space race. For wonks, a “soft landing” occurs when heat is taken out of the economy without causing it to veer into recession. Yet the phrase’s illustrious origins hide an ignominious reality. The first time such a landing was predicted, in 1973, by George Shultz, America’s treasury secretary, things did not go to plan. A recession began almost immediately; inflation blazed for the rest of the decade. Prices finally cooled under Paul Volcker, a Federal Reserve chairman, but only after interest-rate rises tipped America into successive recessions and the worst joblessness since the second world war.Though Mr Shultz’s forecast was catastrophically wrong, it was not unusual. As Michael Kantrowitz of Piper Sandler, an investment firm, has pointed out, investors often think a soft landing lies ahead as a Fed tightening cycle comes to an end. That is exactly what is happening this time around. Since October, the s&p 500 share-price index of large American firms has risen by 16%. An index of investment-grade corporate-bond prices compiled by Bloomberg, a data provider, has rallied by 9%. Worries about recession, overwhelming a few months ago, seem almost forgotten. If history is any guide, such fears are likely to return. It is not that soft landings are impossible. Since the 1970s, Fed policymakers have managed them precisely twice. In 1984 and 1995, America’s stockmarket began to rally just as interest rates reached their peak. Investors who bought early were rewarded with sustained, multi-year bull markets.But there have been six other tightening cycles in the past 50 years, and all were followed by recession (even if the sixth, in 2019, was complicated by the covid-19 pandemic). One lesson is that soft landings are rare and hard ones more likely. The more troubling lesson is that, in the early days, the two scenarios are indistinguishable based on how stockmarkets behave. Before each of the hard landings, share prices began to rally, in some cases for up to a year. Then things started to go wrong. The economy sputtered, optimism fizzled and stocks plunged. Mr Kantrowitz’s explanation for the similarity between the very different scenarios is that, at least in the early days, hard landings look a lot like soft ones. Both feature interest-rate rises, followed by a pivot as the market prices in future cuts, and shares begin to rally. For the soft landings, this is the end of the story. But for the hard ones, the worst is still ahead: employment weakens, along with housing, and investors take a battering. Therefore buoyant share prices today offer little information about whether the Fed’s present tightening cycle will end happily—a matter on which opinion remains sharply divided. More cheerful types, chief among them Joe Biden, America’s president, point to an impressively resilient economy and a labour market that is booming despite the swiftest series of interest-rate rises since Volcker’s era. Others fear, however, that the impact of rate increases is still to come. Edward Cole of Man Group, an asset manager, worries that tightness in the labour market and an excess of household savings—both leftovers from the pandemic—are delaying the pain of monetary tightening that will eventually be felt. The average response of 71 professional economists surveyed in January by the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper, puts the probability of recession in the next 12 months at 61%.If the stockmarket is an inadequate guide, other indicators have more predictive power. Unfortunately, they present a less rosy picture. In previous Fed tightening cycles, soft landings were typically preceded by relatively low inflation, and accompanied by looser bank-lending standards. Today’s circumstances are the exact opposite.The surest recession indicator of all is the gap between ten-year and three-month Treasury yields. Typically this is positive, with long-term yields higher than short-term ones (as investors demand a higher return to lock up their money for longer). The gap has turned negative (meaning investors expect imminent and sustained rate cuts) only nine times in the last half-century. Eight were followed by recessions. The ninth negative spell started last October and continues today. As Fed officials bring the economy in to land, the most reliable part of the dashboard is flashing red. ■ More

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    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s two bond guarantors unsealed, both with ties to Stanford

    The names of two of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s guarantors were made public after a judge granted a motion to have their identities unsealed.
    The guarantors are Larry Kramer and Andreas Paepcke.
    Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School, told CNBC that he made the decision to help the Bankman-Fried family after their years of supporting him.

    The names of two of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s guarantors were revealed on Wednesday, after an unsealing motion from media companies including CNBC was granted by a Manhattan federal judge.
    Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million recognizance bond in December after he was indicted on criminal fraud charges. In all, there were four guarantors, including his parents, to ensure Bankman-Fried’s cooperation with pretrial detention requirements.

    The other two guarantors are now known to be Larry Kramer, who is president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and dean emeritus at Stanford Law School, and Andreas Paepcke, a senior research scientist at Stanford University. Their names had been sealed, but several media outlets moved to have their identities made public.

    Former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried (C) arrives to enter a plea before US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Manhattan federal court, New York, January 3, 2023. 
    Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images

    Both of Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, are on the faculty of Stanford. They live near the university.
    “Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried have been close friends of my wife and I since the mid-1990s,” Kramer told CNBC’s Eamon Javers. “During the past two years, while my family faced a harrowing battle with cancer, they have been the truest of friends — bringing food, providing moral support, and frequently stepping in at moment’s notice to help. In turn, we have sought to support them as they face their own crisis.”
    Kramer said he was acting “in my personal capacity” and has “no business dealings or interest in this matter other than to help our loyal and steadfast friends.”
    Kramer signed a $500,000 unsecured bond, while Paepcke signed the same type of bond for $250,000.

    Paepcke, who graduated from Harvard University and has a Ph.D. in computer science from a school in Germany, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    The only information provided in the unsealed documentation was the names of the guarantors and the dates they signed the documents. Their names match the identities of two Stanford University-associated individuals.
    Bankman-Fried’s initial release was secured by both his family home and by the two bonds. The former crypto billionaire will return to New York later this week for a hearing before a Manhattan federal judge over his bail conditions, and he’s expected to face federal trial in October. He pleaded not guilty in January.
    — CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.
    WATCH: Prosecutors say Sam Bankman-Fried’s contact with FTX employees suggests witness tampering

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    Bernie Sanders hints at subpoena for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

    Sen. Bernie Sanders hinted that lawmakers could subpoena Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to compel him to testify in front of a Senate hearing.
    The Sanders-chaired Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee scheduled a hearing for March 9 about Starbucks’ alleged noncompliance with federal labor law.
    The coffee chain has been accused of unfair labor practices tied to its efforts to quash its baristas’ push to unionize.

    Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (L), Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
    Reuters (L) | Getty Images (R)

    Sen. Bernie Sanders hinted that lawmakers could subpoena Howard Schultz to compel the outgoing Starbucks CEO to testify in front of a Senate panel about how the coffee chain is handling its baristas’ push to unionize.
    “One way or another, he will be there,” Sanders, a pro-union Vermont independent, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “But as you know, that’s not the decision of the chairman alone.”

    Sanders, who chairs the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement Wednesday that he intends to hold Schultz and Starbucks accountable and looks forward to seeing Schultz appear before the committee.
    A representative for Starbucks declined to comment on Sanders’ remarks.
    Schultz declined an invitation from 11 senators to appear at the March 9 hearing, Reuters first reported Tuesday evening. Starbucks’ general counsel, Zabrina Jenkins, wrote in the letter that Schultz is leaving his role in March, so it makes more sense for another senior leader with ongoing responsibilities to testify instead.
    The company has instead put chief public affairs officer AJ Jones II forward as the best person to address the committee.
    Schultz owns 1.9% of Starbucks’ shares, according to Factset. The company’s market value stands at about $124.6 billion.

    Nearly 290 company-owned Starbucks cafes in the U.S. have voted to unionize as of Monday, according to a tally from the National Labor Relations Board. Baristas’ union push began under Schultz’s predecessor — and one-time successor — Kevin Johnson. When Johnson resigned in the spring of 2021, Schultz returned to the helm and pushed back more aggressively against workers’ attempts to unionize.
    To date, regional offices of the federal labor board have issued 76 complaints against Starbucks, alleging illegal labor practices. Most recently, the NLRB ruled Monday that Starbucks illegally fired two workers and broke other labor laws during a union drive at two Philadelphia locations in 2019, prior to the current union boom sweeping across the company.
    The allegations of union busting have damaged Starbucks’ reputation as a progressive employer, although they don’t appear to have hurt the company’s U.S. sales. The chain reported U.S. same-store sales growth of 10% for its latest quarter, boosted by strong demand over the holiday season.

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    ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania’ reviews: The villain is good, but the movie is bad

    Marvel Studio’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania” currently holds a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
    This is only the second Marvel Cinematic Universe film to earn a Rotten rating.
    Jonathan Majors shines as Kang the Conqueror, but the film is an overstuffed mess, critics say.

    Paul Rudd is Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, alongside Johnathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania.”

    Are the pint-sized heroes of Disney’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania” enough to take on the newest — and baddest — villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Not quite.
    Peyton Reed’s previous Ant-Man installments offered the MCU a smaller-than-life look at what it means to be a hero. The small-stakes romps were welcome excursions away from the apocalyptic stakes of the wider franchise and offered a lighthearted counterbalance to the greater threats of the universe.

    However, the demands of Disney’s Marvel machine came calling for Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and his partner the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly).
    Enter Kang the Conqueror.
    Played by “Lovecraft Country” star Jonathan Majors, Kang is the next overarching villain of the MCU and is expected to remain a looming threat throughout the Multiverse Saga, which includes the planned phases four, five and six of the franchise. He was introduced in the Disney+ show “Loki.”
    Critics praised Majors’ performance in the film, as the actor was able to bring gravitas to the the role and exude the kind of menace that made previous big bad Thanos (Josh Brolin) such a compelling, and threatening, villain. However, Kang’s larger-than-life presence overshadowed the quirky and charming narrative that fans have come to expect from Ant-Man side quests, critics say. (Majors will also appear as the antagonist in next month’s “Creed III.”)
    “Majors is certainly chilling and captivating, but Kang seems like a mismatched foe for a standalone Ant-Man film and the result is a ‘Quantumania’ that is trying to be too many things,” wrote Lindsey Bahr in her review of the film for Associated Press.

    “Quantumania” is at its best when it keeps things “light and quippy,” Bahr said.

    Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”

    This sentiment was shared with numerous other reviewers, as the latest Marvel film became one of only two in the 31 movies that have been released as part of the MCU to receive a “Rotten” score from Rotten Tomatoes.
    “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania” held a 53% “rotten” rating from 148 reviews, as of Wednesday afternoon. The only other film from the MCU to slip below the 60% “fresh” threshold was 2021’s “Eternals,” which ultimately earned a 47% rating.
    “Quantumania” centers on Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, and Hope Van Dyne, aka the Wasp, after their family is sucked into the subatomic Quantum Realm. There, they face off against Kang, a dimension-hopping tyrant who is trying to escape from the realm after being exiled there for his rampages across time and space.
    Here are what critics thought of the film ahead of its release Friday:

    Kristy Puchko, Mashable

    “Michael Pena’s absence should have been a warning,” wrote Kristy Puchko in her review of “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania” for Mashable. “The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown so massive and all-consuming that it’s not enough for an Ant-Man movie to be an Ant-Man movie.”
    What fans are given instead is a “chaotic, woefully unfunny mess that has forgotten why its hero was such fun.”
    Puchko bemoans that both Ant-Man and the Wasp as almost relegated to sidekicks in their own movie, as Kang and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) are given the spotlight — and shine in it. (Michael Douglas also reprises his role as Dr. Hank Pym.)
    The film itself is anything but light. Puchko likened the dark action scenes to those seen during the final season of HBO’s “Game Of Thrones,” blurry, dim and incoherent.
    “Yet when the lights are turned up, you might wish they weren’t,” she said, noting that the Quantum Realm, a place of endless possibilities, has been imagined as “a mash-up of ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Strange World,’ slime, and those Magic Eye posters that made us squint to make sense of them.”
    “In the end, with its clumsy collision of influences, star power, CGI that is often rubbery or outright ugly, and a convoluted plot that should have an Excedrin tie-in, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is like a child’s mixed media project, made of paper mache, glitter, and hunks of rotting ground meat,” she said.
    Read the full review from Mashable.

    Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) and Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) in “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania.”

    Kate Erbland, IndieWire

    Majors as Kang “doesn’t disappoint,” said Kate Erbland in her review of “Quantumania” for IndieWire.
    “Towering over ‘Quantumania’ and its little ant friends with genuine pathos, pain, and fear, even if the most studied MCU scholars will likely be confused by what exactly his Kang the Conquerer wants and, uh, is,” she wrote. “But cramming Majors’ Kang against Rudd’s Scott Lang [and family] … as they zip and zag through a tiny, ‘Star Wars’-influenced world doesn’t just feel confusing; it can feel outright mean.”
    Erbland calls Kang “formidable,” noting Majors’ powerhouse performance solidifies the character as “the MCU’s scariest bad guy to date.”
    Majors has signed on for at least two more MCU films, but won’t make an official return until Phase Six.
    Read the full review from IndieWire.

    Charlotte O’Sullivan, Evening Standard

    “The first instalment of Phase Five of the MCU comes with a lot of baggage,” wrote Charlotte O’Sullivan in her review of the film for Evening Standard.
    The film is not only the third standalone Ant-Man flick, but it also has the heavy lift of introducing Kang to the big screen.
    “Sometimes the weight of all this responsibility causes ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ … to buckle at the knees,” O’Sullivan wrote.
    Still, the film has heart, she said. Scott Lang’s crippling desire to care for his daughter and keep his family safe is the driving force behind the film, which hosts a solid cast.
    “If you can ignore the convoluted plot – not, sadly, a rarity in the increasingly complex Marvel Cinematic Universe – you’ll have a blast with these characters,” she wrote.
    Read the full review from Evening Standard.

    Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) in “Ant-Man and The Wasp in Quantumania.”

    Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

    “Ant-Man and The Wasp in Quantumania” has the unenviable task of wrapping up “an already scattershot MCU” and introducing the franchise’s next big bad, said Hoai-Tran Bui in her review of the film for Inverse.
    “Ultimately, ‘Quantumania’ does a middling job of both. But in the process, it commits the worst sin a movie can make: it’s boring,” she said.
    The film’s biggest problem, Bui posits, is that “Quantumania” is not a movie, but a building block for the future of the MCU.
    “There are three movies jostling for screentime within ‘Quantumania’ — Scott and Cassie’s father-daughter story, Janet van Dyne’s repressed guilt over Kang’s origins, the Quantum Realm’s long fight to overthrow the tyrannical Kang — but they’re all overshadowed by the MCU of it all,” she wrote.
    “Marvel movies have long become less like movies and more like feature-length commercials for the next thing, and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is sadly the greatest embodiment of that,” Bui added. “The result is an undercooked, overstuffed action movie that feels like a shadow of better pulpy adventure sendups before it.”
    The films overstuffed plot may have been forgiven “if it could have lived up to the absurd humor of the first two films,” Bui wrote.
    Read the full review from Inverse.
    Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.

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    Kraft Heinz issues soft profit guidance, pauses price hikes

    Kraft Heinz’s earnings and revenue topped expectations.
    The company behind Oscar Meyer and Jell-O increased prices 15.2% and saw a 4.8% decline in volume.
    Kraft Heinz issued profit guidance for the year that fell below Wall Street’s estimates.

    Heinz brand tomato ketchup arranged in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Friday, July 22, 2022. Kraft Heinz Co. is scheduled to release earnings figures on July 27.
    Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Kraft Heinz on Wednesday beat Wall Street’s earnings and sales expectations, but offered soft profit guidance for the year, a sign of rising pressure from higher costs.
    The company also announced Wednesday on its earnings it would pause further price hikes in North America, Europe, Latin America and most of Asia after PepsiCo did the same last week.

    Shares of the Pittsburgh-based company, whose brands include Oscar Meyer, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Lunchables, were little changed Wednesday.
    Here’s how the company did, compared to analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitiv:

    Revenue: $7.38 billion vs. $7.27 billion expected
    Adjusted earnings per share: 85 cents vs. 78 cents expected

    Fourth quarter net sales rose 10% to $7.38 billion from year prior. The company swung to a profit in the period, too, reporting $887 million in net income, or 72 cents in earnings per share, versus a loss of $255 million, or 21 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, per-share earnings for the most recent quarter were 85 cents.
    However, the company expects adjusted earnings of $2.67 and $2.75 per share for the year, coming in below analyst estimates of $2.77 per share, according to Refinitiv.
    Though packaged food companies have increased prices over the last two years, they still struggle with rising commodity costs and supply chain issues. Kraft Heinz boosted pricing 15.2% with a 4.8% decline in volume — the amount of units sold. The company cited price pressures and supply constraints in describing why volumes fell.

    “As we look to the rest of the year, we have no current plan to announce new pricing in North America, Europe, Latin America and most of Asia,” CEO Miguel Patricio said on the earnings call.
    This trend of higher prices overshadowing lower demand has been common at consumer-goods companies. Coca-Cola raised prices 12% with a 1% decline in volume, while Clorox hiked prices 14% and posted a 10% drop in volumes. Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and UPS all experienced a similar trend this earnings season.
    Despite beating on revenue and EPS, Kraft Heinz earnings contrast with companies such as Oreo maker Mondelēz International, which saw little demand pushback despite price increases.
    The company expects organic net sales growth of 4% to 6% in 2023, slightly above estimates of 4.8%.
    Kraft Heinz launched a campaign titled “LVII Meanz 57,” protesting the use of Roman numerals, ahead of Super Bowl 57. The brand launched a website where consumers could vote on whether or not Roman numerals should be dropped, according to a press release.
    – CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed reporting.

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    World’s oldest Hebrew Bible could fetch $50 million at auction

    A Hebrew Bible that’s more than 1,000 years old could sell for up to $50 million at auction this spring.
    That price would make the Codex Sassoon the most valuable historical document ever auctioned.
    In 2021, billionaire Ken Griffin paid $43.2 million for a first edition copy of the U.S. Constitution.

    Images of the Codex Sassoon, which Sotheby’s will auction in May.
    Courtesy: Sotheby’s

    A Hebrew Bible that’s more than 1,000 years old could sell for up to $50 million at auction this spring, which would make it the most valuable historical document ever auctioned.
    Sotheby’s in May will auction off the so-called Codex Sassoon, which dates to the ninth century and bridges the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the modernly accepted form of today’s Hebrew Bible.

    “It is a vital touchstone of human history,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts.
    The sales estimate for the Bible is between $30 million to $50 million. In 2021, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid $43.2 million for a first edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction. In 1994 Bill Gates paid $30.8 million for the Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings that contains drawings by Leonardo da Vinci.

    The ‘Codex Sassoon’ bible is displayed at Sotheby’s in New York on February 15, 2023. – According to Sotheby’s the Codex Sassoon is the earliest and most complete Hebrew Bible ever discovered and will be offered for auction with an estimate of 30-50 million US dollars, making it the most valuable printed text or historical document ever offered. 
    Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images

    The name “Codex Sassoon” comes from the Bible’s previous ownership, as part of the famed collection of David Solomon Sassoon, who assembled the most significant private collection of Judaica and Hebraica manuscripts in the 20th century. Before the Codex Sassoon, only fragments of biblical texts existed in scroll form, experts say.
    Sotheby’s said that while the Bible held a prominent place in Sassoon’s collection, it was only recently only recently scientifically studied and carbon dated by the current owner, whom Sotheby’s declined to name.
    The carbon dating verified its dating to the 9th century, making it older than the Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex, two other well-known early Hebrew Bibles.

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    Homebuilder sentiment in February improved by the biggest amount in a decade

    America’s homebuilders are becoming more bullish about the housing market.
    The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose by the highest amount month to month in 10 years.

    America’s homebuilders are growing more bullish as buyer demand picks up, driven in part by slightly lower mortgage rates.
    Homebuilder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes in February rose 7 points to 42, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. This is the highest reading since September and the largest monthly gain since June 2013.

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    Anything below 50 is considered negative, but sentiment had fallen to 31 in December. The index stood at 81 in February of last year, before mortgage rates began to rise.
    Builders say affordability is improving, as mortgage rates fall back from their highs of last fall and start to settle in a narrow range. The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage had peaked at 7.37% last October, according to Mortgage News Daily but spent much of January in the low 6% range. Rates have moved up slightly in the past two weeks to the mid-6% range.
    “With the largest monthly increase for builder sentiment since June 2013, the HMI indicates that incremental gains for housing affordability have the ability to price-in buyers to the market,” said NAHB Chairman Alicia Huey, a homebuilder and developer from Birmingham, Alabama. “The nation continues to face a sizeable housing shortage that can only be closed by building more affordable, attainable housing.”

    A construction worker works atop a home, as a subdivision of homes is built in San Marcos, California, January 31, 2023.
    Mike Blake | Reuters

    Huey called it “cautious optimism,” adding that affordable housing is still difficult to build, given higher costs for labor and materials.
    Of the NAHB index’s three components, current sales conditions in February rose 6 points to 46. Sales expectations in the next six months increased 11 points to 48, and buyer traffic climbed 6 points to 29.

    Builders had been using strong incentives to offset higher mortgage rates, but they appear to be pulling back on those as rates settle.
    NAHB reports 31% of builders reduced home prices in February, down from 35% in December and 36% in November. The average price drop in February was 6%, down from 8% in December, and tied with 6% in November. The share of builders offering any kind of incentive, like a mortgage rate buydown, fell to 57% in February, down from 62% in December and 59% in November.
    “Even as the Federal Reserve continues to tighten monetary policy conditions, forecasts indicate that the housing market has passed peak mortgage rates for this cycle,” said NAHB’s chief economist, Robert Dietz. “And while we expect ongoing volatility for mortgage rates and housing costs, the building market should be able to achieve stability in the coming months, followed by a rebound back to trend home construction levels later in 2023 and the beginning of 2024.”
    Regionally, looking at the three-month moving averages, sentiment in the Northeast rose 4 points to 37. In the Midwest it increased 1 point to 33, and in the South increased 4 points to 40. In the West, where housing is least affordable, it rose 3 points to 30.

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