Raphael Stevens

Home prices were 3.9% higher in September compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index.
The growth coincided with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate’s climb toward 8%.
Rents are easing, however, while home prices rise.

A townhouse for sale in the Upper East Side neighborhood of NYC.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Higher mortgage rates appear to be doing very little to cool home prices.
Nationally, prices were 3.9% higher in September compared with the same month a year earlier, up from a 2.5% annual gain in August, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index. This occurred as the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage climbed toward 8%.

Of the 20 metropolitan markets highlighted in the report, Detroit saw the biggest annual increase at 6.7%, followed by San Diego at 6.5% and New York at 6.3%. Three of the 20 cities, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Portland, Oregon, reported lower prices compared with a year ago. Those cities were some of the biggest gainers in the first few years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’ve commented before on the breadth of the housing market’s strength, which continued to be impressive,” Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, said in a release. “Although this year’s increase in mortgage rates has surely suppressed the quantity of homes sold, the relative shortage of inventory for sale has been a solid support for prices.”
Rates have eased in recent weeks, meanwhile, leading to slight growth in mortgage demand.
Year to date, home prices nationally have risen 6.1%, much more than the median full calendar year increase in more than 35 years of this index’s data.
“Unless higher rates or exogenous events lead to general economic weakness, the breadth and strength of this month’s report are consistent with an optimistic view of future results,” Lazzara added.

What about rents?

As home prices continue to gain, rents are easing up.
The national median rent dropped 0.9% in November from October, according to Apartment List. The benchmark has now fallen 3.5% from its all-time high in August 2022. Rent is nearly $250 a month more than it was three years ago, however.
Rents are dropping due to both seasonal and supply factors. There is a record amount of new apartment supply coming on this year, after a construction boom in the sector.
“Vacancies get harder to fill as we draw closer to the holidays, so now is the time when renters have the most sway in lease negotiations,” according to the report.
Rent growth will continue to be moderated by more supply next year. Nationwide, the apartment vacancy rate is now 6.4%, a touch higher than the pre-pandemic average, and it could rise even more next year.
“Rental growth will pick up again in the spring seasonally, but it’s obvious the deceleration is here and will eventually flow thru the CPI data,” noted Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group and a CNBC contributor.
“While inflation here will further cool in 2024, we are setting ourselves up for a reacceleration in the years after. That said, markets we know only care about the here and now and renters will certainly appreciate the slowdown when mortgage rates are above 7% and affordability to buy a home is tough,” he added.
Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Shein has confidentially filed to go public and is moving forward with its long-rumored IPO.
The retailer was last valued at $66 billion.
Shein has tapped Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to be the lead underwriters on the offering.

A Shein pop-up store inside a Forever 21 store in Times Square in New York on Nov. 10, 2023.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shein has confidentially filed to go public in the U.S. as the Chinese-founded fast-fashion juggernaut looks to expand its global reach with a long-rumored initial public offering, CNBC has learned. 
The retailer was last valued at $66 billion and could be ready to start trading on the public markets as soon as 2024, people familiar with the matter said Monday. 

It is unclear how much the company is currently worth, but its valuation has been a central point of debate among Shein and the advisors it’s working with, people familiar with the matter said. 
A confidential filing is common, as it allows companies to communicate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and make any necessary adjustments to their filings in private. Over the next few months, Shein will likely make tweaks to its paperwork and answer numerous questions from the agency. The filing will be made public once the company is ready to move forward with its IPO. At that point, those communications with the SEC and any adjustments to its paperwork will be released as well.
Shein has been on a meteoric rise over the past few years after it won over consumers across the globe with its fashion-forward designs, endless assortment and dirt-cheap prices. But Shein has faced a series of challenges along the way and faced accusations of using forced labor in its supply chain, violating labor laws, harming the environment and stealing designs from independent artists.
The company is currently under investigation by the newly formed House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and has faced scrutiny over its ties to Beijing. Numerous lawmakers, including 16 Republican attorneys general, have called on the SEC to ensure Shein isn’t using forced labor in its supply chain before it’s allowed to start trading in the U.S.
In October, Marcelo Claure, the company’s newly minted group vice chair and former SoftBank CEO, told CNBC in an interview that Shein is cooperating with lawmakers and taking time to meet with them to explain the business. He said, “there’s no such thing as forced labor” in the Shein factories that he has visited. But the company has repeatedly acknowledged that forced labor has been found in its supply chain and noted that it’s taking steps to fix it.

As Shein grew from an obscure Chinese retailer into a global behemoth with headquarters in Singapore, it largely stayed in the shadows. It said and did very little publicly until this year, when it began to open up in an apparent attempt to prepare for a U.S. IPO.
With Chinese CEO Sky Xu still at the helm, Shein tapped former Bear Stearns investment banker Donald Tang to be its executive chair and public face earlier this year. It has hosted a series of well-publicized pop-up events, sent influencers to its Chinese factories in a poorly received public relations campaign and courted the business press with splashy parties that featured its independent designers and other friends of the company.
Shein has worked hard to beat the many negative accusations that have come to define the company and has made its executives available for interviews as it worked to change the narrative.
Recently, it acquired about one-third of Sparc Group — a joint venture that includes brand management firm Authentic Brands Group and mall owner Simon Property Group — and in doing so, made a powerful U.S. ally that could help legitimize the company in the eyes of U.S. regulators.
As part of the deal, Shein has partnered up with former rival Forever 21 to unveil a co-branded clothing line that will see Shein design, manufacture and distribute the clothes primarily on its website. Shein has been hosting pop-up events inside of Forever 21’s stores.
Shein still has more work to do before it can win the trust of U.S. regulators. Beyond its myriad of issues, its CEO remains a mysterious figure who doesn’t give interviews or speak publicly about the company. The practice is a major departure from other firms that are publicly traded in the U.S., which regularly make their CEOs available. In October, the company did not tell CNBC whether Xu is still a Chinese citizen.
The company has tapped Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to be the lead underwriters on the offering, the people said. 
Shein declined to comment. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley did not comment.
Earlier Monday, Chinese media reported on Shein’s filing.Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

The diabetes drug Mounjaro is more effective for weight loss than Ozempic in overweight or obese adults, according to a large analysis of real-world data.
Patients taking Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro were significantly more likely to lose weight and saw larger reductions in body weight compared with those on Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic.
The results come as both drugs and similar treatments approved for weight loss soar in demand in the U.S. for their ability to help patients shed unwanted pounds over time.

George Frey | Reuters

The blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro is more effective for weight loss than another highly popular diabetes treatment, Ozempic, in overweight or obese adults, according to a large analysis of real-world data published Monday.
Patients taking Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro were significantly more likely to lose 5%, 10% and 15% of their body weight overall and saw larger reductions in body weight after three months, six months and a year compared with those on Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic in the study by Truveta Research. The firm compiles and analyzes patient data from a collective of health-care systems. 

The results from the study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, come as both drugs and similar treatments approved for weight loss soar in demand in the U.S. for their ability to help patients shed unwanted pounds over time. Mounjaro and Ozempic are only approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, but many people use the weekly injections off-label to lose weight. 
A spokesperson for Eli Lilly said the company does not promote or encourage off-label use of any of its medicines and noted that the new study was not sponsored by the drugmaker.
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson similarly said that the company was not involved in the study. They also said the study does not consider that Ozempic is administered at slightly lower doses than its weight-loss drug counterpart, Wegovy. Both drugs contain the active ingredient semaglutide.
Meanwhile, Mounjaro and another version of the drug approved for weight loss called Zepbound are the same medicine with the same dosage level, the spokesperson added.
Previous head-to-head studies have similarly suggested that Mounjaro is more effective than Ozempic for weight loss and controlling blood sugar in adults with Type 2 diabetes. 

But Monday’s study suggests that Mounjaro has an edge over Ozempic in a real-world setting, specifically among adults who are overweight or obese. Notably, head-to-head clinical trials in that population are not yet available, according to Truveta Research. 
Eli Lilly is pitting Zepbound and Wegovy in an ongoing clinical trial in obese or overweight patients. But results won’t be released until 2025.
“We’ve been able to compare the head-to-head efficacy of these two important medications for weight loss in advance of randomized clinical trials,” said Dr. Nick Stucky, an author of the study and vice president of Truveta Research, in a statement. “This study can help to inform patient care and outcomes today, not months from now.”

Study results on Mounjaro and Ozempic

Truveta Research specifically examined health-care data on roughly 18,000 adults who are overweight or obese and first started taking Mounjaro or Ozempic between May 2022 and September 2023. Nearly 52% of those patients had Type 2 diabetes.
Researchers found that patients taking Mounjaro were three times more likely to lose 15% of their weight than those on Ozempic. Patients on Mounjaro were also 2.6 times more likely to achieve 10% weight loss and 1.8 times more likely to lose 5% of their weight.

More CNBC health coverage

Those taking Mounjaro also experienced “significantly larger reductions” in body weight at specific time points, according to Truveta Research.
At three months, patients on Mounjaro lost 5.9% of their weight, while those on Ozempic lost 3.6%. At six months, people taking Mounjaro lost 10.1% of their weight, while patients on Ozempic lost 5.9%. And at one year, those on Mounjaro lost 15.2% of their weight, while those on Ozempic lost 7.9%.
Truveta Research also found that patients without Type 2 diabetes lost more weight than those with the condition. But the differences in effectiveness between Mounjaro and Ozempic were similar in both populations.
Rates of adverse gastrointestinal events were similar between patients taking Mounjaro and Ozempic.

The big difference between the weekly injections

Mounjaro and Ozempic, along with their weight loss counterparts, are both weekly injections that change the way patients eat and lead to decreased appetite by mimicking certain hormones in the gut. 
Ozempic and Wegovy only mimic one hunger-regulating hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, also known as GLP-1, which increases the feeling of fullness and lowers blood sugar levels.
Meanwhile, Mounjaro and Zepbound mimic GLP-1 and another hormone in the gut called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP.
The dual approach means that Mounjaro and Zepbound have an enhanced effect on regulating appetite and blood sugar levels, which some experts say could potentially lead to more significant weight loss than medications only targeting GLP-1. 
In Eli Lilly’s late-stage study of more than 2,500 adults with obesity but not diabetes, those taking 5 milligrams of Zepbound for 72 weeks lost about 16% of their body weight on average. Higher doses of the drug were associated with even more weight loss, with a 15-milligram dose leading to 22.5% weight loss on average.
More than 2 in 5 adults have obesity, according to the National Institutes of Health. 
About 1 in 11 adults have severe obesity.
Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Disney’s “Wish” fumbled at the box office during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, tallying just $31.6 million over the five-day period.
It faced ticket sale competition from “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” “Napoleon” and “Trolls Band Together.”
It’s historically rare for Disney to lag at the Thanksgiving box office, but it’s struggled since the pandemic to inspire moviegoers to head to cinemas for its newest features.

Ariana DeBose stars as Asha in Disney’s new animated film “Wish.”

Disney needs to do more than wish on some stars to get out of its animation rut.
Its latest animated feature “Wish,” billed as a celebration of 100 years of storytelling, fumbled at the box office during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It tallied just $31.6 million over the five-day period, far below box office analysts’ expectations of between $45 million and $55 million.

Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” took the top spot for the five-day holiday, generating $42.2 million in ticket sales. Apple and Sony’s “Napoleon,” an R-rated war epic from Ridley Scott, came in second with $32.75 million.
It’s historically rare for Disney to lag at the Thanksgiving box office. The company has for more than a decade released top-grossing animated films during the Wednesday-to-Sunday frame and even set records for highest-grossing openings for films released on Thanksgiving.
But it’s struggled since the pandemic to inspire moviegoers to head to cinemas for its newest features.
“A set it and forget it strategy based on past performance can no longer be employed by any studio,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “There are some hard lessons being learned as this confounding movie marketplace continues to re-write the rules and audiences make their preferences known with either their presence or the absence at the multiplex.”
The underperformance of “Wish” extends an unfortunate pattern for the company, which operates two animation studios — Walt Disney Animation and Pixar.

Much of Disney’s trouble has come from executive decisions to pad its fledgling streaming service Disney+ with content, stretching its creative teams thin and sending theatrical movies during the pandemic straight to digital.
Parents, confused about when and where animated films were being released, didn’t show up to theaters for a number of titles from Disney in the wake of the pandemic. And many of those films weren’t well-received by those who did.

Then there’s the added pressures of shareholders who have become focused on the profitability of Disney+, tight marketing budgets and audiences that have become more selective about when and what they go out to see at cinemas.
Disney, which ruled the animation genre for decades, is also facing steep competition from Netflix, Universal, Sony and Warner Bros., among others, for moviegoers’ attention. Just a week before “Wish” hit theaters, Universal’s DreamWorks animation studio released “Trolls Band Together,” the third installment in the popular Trolls franchise.
“Trolls Band Together” secured $25.6 million in ticket sales during the five-day Thanksgiving frame, just a few million shy of “Wish.” Box office analysts believe “Trolls” ate into “Wish” ticket sales.
“Entering a marketplace with a familiar ‘Trolls’ movie already in the mix was a recipe for a less than stellar result for the company’s latest release,” Dergarabedian said.
Still, the story of “Wish” isn’t done. Disney has found success over the run of a theatrical release for films like “Elemental,” which tallied just $29.6 million during its domestic opening, but went on to secure nearly $480 million globally before leaving theaters.
Similarly, “Encanto” snared $40.3 million for the five-day Thanksgiving period in 2021. Although it captured less than $250 million globally during the pandemic, it found new life on Disney+. The film quickly became a fan favorite with kids and adults alike, who gravitated towards catchy tunes like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”
“‘Wish’ fortunately has the December holiday family moviegoing corridor and of course a future on Disney+ to bolster its fortunes,” said Dergarabedian.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal distributed “Trolls Band Together.” More

Rivian on Monday started leasing select models of its all-electric R1T pickup truck.
It’s a move to expand sales and its customer base beyond early adopters of electric vehicles.
Leasing has become a popular way for customers to try out an electric vehicle without any long-term commitment.

A Rivian electric pickup truck sits in a parking lot at a Rivian service center in South San Francisco, California, on May 9, 2022.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Rivian on Monday started leasing select models of its all-electric R1T pickup truck, a move to expand sales and its customer base beyond early adopters of electric vehicles.
The company said the program is available to customers in 14 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

A Rivian spokeswoman said the automaker is working with its existing financial partner Chase for the leasing program, which she said will expand over time.
“We chose these launch states based on many factors including where our customers are located and where leasing is most popular,” she said in an email to CNBC.
Based on the company’s website, leasing is largely available on higher-end models of the vehicle that can cost more than $90,000.
Leasing has become a popular way for customers to try out an electric vehicle without any long-term commitment. Doing so also qualifies a buyer for a full $7,500 federal tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act, compared to the $3,750 that purchasers of Rivian models currently qualify for.

Leasing is categorized as commercial business under the IRA and therefore exempt from regulations that require the vehicle and battery components to be made in North America. Most EVs for sale today do not qualify for the full tax credit because of where the vehicles or components are built.

“Today, Rivian launched a new way for customers to get behind the wheel of a Rivian with the introduction of leasing,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Rivian’s leasing program offers the adventure of owning a Rivian with more flexibility.”
Rivian, earlier this month, raised its production forecast for the full year by 2,000 vehicles to 54,000 units on the back of sustained demand.Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More