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Overall mortgage applications rose for the week, but were still far below last year’s levels.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 6.67% last week from 6.90%
Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 3% for the week, but they were down 41% from a year ago.

A home, available for sale, is shown on August 12, 2021 in Houston, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Mortgage applications rose 2.2% last week compared with the previous week, prompted by a slight decline in interest rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.
Refinance applications, which are usually most sensitive to weekly rate moves, rose 2% for the week but were still 86% lower than the same week one year ago. Even with interest rates now back from their recent high of 7.16% a month ago, there are precious few who can still benefit from a refinance — just 220,000, according to real estate data firm Black Knight.

Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 3% for the week, but they were down 41% from a year ago. Some potential buyers may now be venturing back in, hearing that there is less competition and more negotiating power, but there is still a shortage of homes for sale and prices have not come down significantly.
Rates are still twice what they were at the beginning of the year, but they eased somewhat last week. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 6.67% from 6.90%, with points increasing to 0.68 from 0.56 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.
“The decrease in mortgage rates should improve the purchasing power of prospective homebuyers, who have been largely sidelined as mortgage rates have more than doubled in the past year,” Joel Kan, an MBA economist, said in a release. “With the decline in rates, the ARM share [adjustable-rate] of applications also decreased to 8.8% of loans last week, down from the range of 10% and 12% during the past two months.”
Mortgage rates haven’t moved at all this week, as the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday tends to weigh on volumes.
“It’s not that things aren’t moving. They just aren’t moving like normal,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “Expect things to get back closer to normal next week, but for the market to continue to wait until December 13 and 14 for the biggest moves.”
That’s when the government releases its next major report on inflation and the Federal Reserve announces its next move on interest rates.

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Hyundai Motor Group is having its best years ever in the U.S. and is expected to capture nearly 11% of new vehicle sales in the country.
But whether the world’s fourth-largest automaker by sales can continue that winning streak, especially in EVs, is in question.
Hyundai buyers have lost federal tax credits associated with purchasing an electric vehicle due to changes in the program under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Hyundai Motor Group is having its best years ever in the U.S.
The South Korean automaker has successfully moved from bargain economy vehicles and dancing hamsters to competing against formidable automakers in the highly profitable American market.

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The company’s Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands are expected to capture nearly 11% of the U.S. new vehicle market this year — marking its highest level since the automaker entered the country in 1986. It’s also set to be among the top sellers of electric vehicles this year, trailing only Tesla through the third quarter.
But whether the world’s fourth-largest automaker by sales last year can continue that winning streak, especially in EVs, is in question. In August, Hyundai buyers lost federal tax credits associated with purchasing an electric vehicle due to changes in the program under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Domestic automakers, including Hyundai’s closest competitors in EVs — Tesla, Ford Motor and General Motors — still qualify for the credit. All of Hyundai’s electric vehicles are currently imported to the U.S., though it produces several gas-powered models at plants in Alabama and Georgia.

Hyundai Motor Co. CEO Jaehoon “Jay” Chang, in an exclusive interview with CNBC, described the loss of incentives as concerning and a “very challenging issue.” But he said he believes the automaker can continue its long-term growth in the U.S., despite the near-term hiccup.
“IRA, short term, it gives us some limitation on the customers’ choice,” Chang told CNBC last month as the company celebrated the groundbreaking of a new $5.5 billion electric vehicle and battery plant in Georgia. “For the long term … we have a very solid plan. … I think we can be competitive.”

Hyundai, including Genesis, and Kia are owned by the same Seoul, South Korea-based parent company but largely operate separately in the U.S.

Navigating IRA

Hyundai, Kia and other non-domestic automakers have been vocal opponents of the new electric vehicle tax credit regulations under the IRA. The law, passed by Congress in August, immediately eliminated a tax credit of up to $7,500 for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles that are imported from outside North America and sold in the U.S.
Hyundai is working closely with public officials in the U.S. and South Korea to change the regulations or secure the automaker an exemption, Chang said. U.S. officials confirmed such discussions are ongoing, including a meeting last week between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and South Korea’s Minister for Trade, Ahn Dukgeun.
Hyundai argues its investment in Georgia — the largest economic development project in that state’s history — should count for something in the way of an IRA revision.

Hyundai executives and government officials break ground on the automaker’s new “Metaplant America” in Bryan County, Georgia, on Tues., Oct. 25, 2022.
CNBC | Michael Wayland

Executives also note the U.S. and South Korea have a tariff-free deal in place for vehicles. (Vehicles built in Mexico and Canada still qualify for the credits.)
Jose Munoz, Hyundai Motor global president and chief operating officer, has declined to disclose a specific financial impact associated with losing the credits, but described it as a huge blow to the automaker’s bottom line.
Steven Center, Kia America’s chief operating officer, said the intentions of the IRA are good for America, but they “pulled the rug out from everybody.”
EV credits or not, executives said the new Georgia plant, which was announced months before the IRA passed, is the culmination of growth for Hyundai in the U.S. They credited the progress to a systematic approach of improvement over decades and a decisive strategy to go all-in on its new products in recent years.
“We’re trying to do everything we can do, but honestly it’s always challenging, being the innovative disruptor kind of stuff. But I think so far, hopefully we’re on the right track to be responsive to the customers’ needs,” Chang said. “We like to be different.”

‘Different’ products

Look no further than Hyundai’s new vehicles for the company to prove it’s “different.” The automaker’s futuristic-looking Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 appear ready to take off into space.
Meanwhile the Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride SUVs have been among the most in-demand vehicles in the country since they launched in 2019.

The Kia EV6 on display at the New York Auto Show, April 13, 2022.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Executives noted the introduction of both the Telluride and Palisade, followed by the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, were major turning points in the company’s product plans.
“The Telluride is attracting wealthier, younger, better-educated customers, and they’re all conquests. That’s a real game-changer,” Center said, referring to the SUVs and EVs as “golden cycles” for Kia. “We’re looking at more, and we’re going to grow as fast as we can.”
The SUVs and EVs followed the automaker’s surprising and well-received entrance into the luxury market with the Genesis brand in 2015.
Genesis has performed well in influential rankings by Consumer Reports, J.D. Power and others. At the Los Angeles Auto Show last week, Genesis won kudos with a new convertible concept vehicle, and its G90 sedan was named 2023 Motor Trend Car of the Year.

Genesis X Convertible concept EV

“The design language has been the big differentiator for us,” Chang said. “We’re going to let the designer have the freedom.”
Even the company’s Kia Carnival minivan — a segment many have given up on — has earned accolades for its SUV-like design and functionality.

Hyundai’s rise

The rise of Hyundai and Kia is impressive when compared to other non-domestic automakers.
“When they came, they had a reputation of just being cheap,” said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “Over the years, it’s gone from cheap to value to really just very competitive.”
Japan-based Toyota spent decades building sales in the U.S. It entered the U.S. automotive industry with small cars in 1957 and achieved 10.4% of market share in the U.S. in 2002, according to public filings. It’s now the world’s largest automaker by sales as of recent years.
Hyundai hit the 10% U.S. market share threshold last year, according to LMC Automotive, roughly 10 years faster than Toyota. The research and forecasting firm expects Hyundai’s U.S. market share to peak at 10.7% before dropping to 9.7% in 2025, as EV production at the new plant in Georgia is expected to begin.
“I think what Hyundai, Kia and Genesis have done is they’ve really compressed that time frame. They went from just bargain-basement vehicles to competitive vehicles to competitive luxury in really a very relatively fast time frame,” Fisher said.
Sales of Hyundai and Kia vehicles have risen roughly 61% since 2010 to more than 1.4 million vehicles in the U.S. last year. Despite an expected decline in sales this year due to supply chain issues, the company is still expected to gain market share.

It’s a similar story for electric vehicle sales. LMC forecasts Hyundai’s sales of all-electric vehicles are expected to represent 9.2% of the U.S. EV market this year. While sales are expected to grow that percentage is seen as the company’s peak until at least 2024 or 2025, when the new Georgia plant is set to come online.
Hyundai’s production, which puts it among the top five in the world, remains lower than Toyota and Volkswagen. Munoz said the new Georgia plant is expected to produce 300,000 vehicles annually, with the potential to reach 500,000 in the future. The company’s two current U.S. plants can produce up to 730,000 vehicles annually.
“In the U.S., our plan is to grow,” Randy Parker, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, told CNBC earlier this month. “It all comes down to capacity that will dictate how much we can grow.”

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Lithium, which some have dubbed “white gold,” is crucial to the batteries that power electric vehicles.
“I just think the Chinese have — I mean you have to take your hat off, they’ve played a great game,” American Lithium CEO Simon Clarke tells CNBC.
“For decades, they’ve been locking up some of the best assets across the world and quietly going about their business,” Clarke adds.

This image, from March 2021, shows a worker with car batteries at a facility in China.
STR | AFP | Getty Images

China is leading the way when it comes to lithium — and the rest of the world has not been quick enough to respond to its dominance, according to the CEO of American Lithium.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Monday, Simon Clarke discussed how China had secured its position of strength within the industry.

“I just think the Chinese have — I mean you have to take your hat off, they’ve played a great game,” he said.
“For decades, they’ve been locking up some of the best assets across the world and quietly going about their business and developing knowledge on building lithium-ion technology, soup to nuts,” he added. “And we’ve been very slow to react to that.”
He added that the U.S.’ Inflation Reduction Act, and a number of other measures, meant people were “starting to wake up to it.”
Alongside its use in cell phones, computers, tablets and a host of other gadgets synonymous with modern life, lithium — which some have dubbed “white gold” — is crucial to the batteries that power electric vehicles.

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China is certainly a dominant force within the sector.

In its World Energy Outlook 2022 report, the International Energy Agency said the country accounted for roughly 60% of the world’s lithium chemical supply. China also produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries, according to the IEA.
With demand for lithium rising, major economies are attempting to shore up their own supplies and reduce dependency on other parts of the world, including China.  
The stakes are high. In a translation of her State of the Union speech, delivered in September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “lithium and rare earths will soon be more important than oil and gas.”
As well as addressing security of supply, von der Leyen also stressed the importance of processing.
“Today, China controls the global processing industry,” she said. “Almost 90% … of rare earth[s] and 60% of lithium are processed in China.”

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With the above in mind, a number of companies in Europe are looking to develop projects centered around securing supply.
Paris-headquartered minerals giant Imerys, for example, plans to develop a lithium extraction project in the center of France, while a facility described as the U.K.’s first large-scale lithium refinery is set to be located in the north of England.
Looking ahead, American Lithium’s Clarke forecast continued geopolitical competition within the sector.
“There’s a real initiative to wrest back some of the supply chain from … China,” he said.
“I think China is in such a dominant position, it’s going to be very hard to do that. But … I think you’re starting to see that approach happening.” More

Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” will be released in China on Dec. 16.
International ticket sales, in general, were a major factor in “Avatar’s” box office success in 2009, as $2.13 billion of the film’s total $2.91 billion in ticket sales came from outside the domestic market.
Prior to the pandemic, China was the second-highest grossing theatrical market in the world. Since cinemas reopened in the country, it has been one of the fastest markets to recover and generate box office success.

Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, “Avatar: The Way of Water” tells the story of the Sully family

Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” has landed a coveted release in China, a promising sign for a film that needs big box office sales to offset its massive budget.
The long awaited sequel to 2009’s “Avatar” is one of only a few Hollywood films that have been granted access to the Chinese market in recent months. Government officials in the region, which began tightening restrictions on Western films even before the pandemic, have been strict about which films can be screened for its entertainment hungry audience.

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The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and was posted on 20th Century Studios’ official Weibo account.
Director James Cameron has not placed a price tag on “The Way of Water,” but estimates suggest it is in excess of $250 million. The writer and director told GQ magazine that the sequel budget is so high, that the film will need to become the third or fourth-highest grossing film in history to break even. That means the film will need to crack the $2 billion mark globally.
International ticket sales, in general, were a major factor in “Avatar’s” box office success in 2009, as $2.13 billion of the film’s total $2.91 billion in ticket sales came from outside the domestic market. China contributed around $265 million.
Prior to the pandemic, China was the second-highest grossing theatrical market in the world. Since cinemas reopened in the country, it has been one of the fastest markets to recover and generate box office success.
In 2009, China’s overall box office reached $910 million. A decade later, its box office topped $8 billion.

Perhaps most important about this release is that it will take place on Dec. 16, the same day as its domestic debut. Disney saw success with this strategy when it released “Avengers: Endgame” on the same day in the U.S. and China, leading to the highest global opening weekend in cinematic history.
“Avatar” saw great success in China during its initial release, and subsequent rerelease in early 2021, as audiences flocked to cinemas to see the film in premium formats. These screenings are more expensive than traditional laser or digital showings and can bolster overall ticket sales.

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It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

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Ford Motor Co: “I still see another bad quarter ahead because they don’t have the right inventory, and then maybe things can get better.”

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Duolingo Inc: “Everyone I know loves it. … However, it’s not doing well financially, so therefore I’m not going to give it my blessing.”

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ImmunoGen Inc: “It’s not making money. It’s not for me.”
Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Ford.

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday named hammered tech stocks that he believes can make a comeback after the Federal Reserve finishes tightening the economy.
He also predicted that there are many pandemic plays that likely won’t recover from this year’s challenges.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday named hammered tech stocks that he believes can make a comeback after the Federal Reserve finishes tightening the economy.
Here is his list: 

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“Nearly all of these, save Apple, are variations on the same story — stocks that were cut in half when their businesses had no such comedowns,” he said, adding, “Their stocks just got way ahead of themselves before the Fed took away that easy money.”
Tech stocks plummeted this year after climbing to stratospheric levels during the height of the pandemic. Persistent inflation, the Fed’s rate hikes, Covid-19 lockdowns in China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove investors out of risky tech stocks and into safer bets.
At the same time, fears about an impending recession have led investors to prioritize profitability in a company over growth. Once-prosperous tech companies have cut thousands of jobs across the industry in an effort to cut costs.
Cramer explained that focus on the dot-com collapse belies the stocks that may survive this period of economic downturn. “Back then, it was the best of breed that eventually managed to rebound — the rest of them just never came back,” he said.
Cramer also predicted that there are many pandemic plays that likely won’t recover from this year’s challenges.

“Once the Fed relents, I’d much rather be in Big Tech, or the top cloud plays, or the better-run chipmakers like AMD and Nvidia,” he said.
Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of AMD, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Salesforce.

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Tuesday that investors should gear up to buy oil next month, relying on charts analysis from Carley Garner.
Garner’s explanation for why Thanksgiving tends to bring such pain for oil is that the week includes the last trading day for December oil futures, and that there’s always an OPEC meeting in late November or early December.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Tuesday that investors should gear up to buy oil next month, relying on charts analysis from Carley Garner.
“She thinks there could be one last washout from this week, possibly early through December, and that washout could take crude down to the low $70s, or even the mid-$60s. Once we get there, she believes that could be the mother of all buying opportunities,” he said.

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West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. benchmark for oil, saw wide swings this week after the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that OPEC members were considering an increase of up 500,000 barrels per day for OPEC+’s December meeting. Saudi Arabia later denied the report. News about Covid-related deaths in China over the weekend also added to oil’s volatility.
WTI crude futures settled at $80.95 a barrel on Tuesday.
To explain Garner’s analysis, Cramer first examined a chart of the seasonal pattern in WTI crude.

Arrows pointing outwards

This chart shows how oil tends to behave at different points during the year and reveals that the week of Thanksgiving tends to be ugly for oil, according to Cramer. “Historically, some of the most devastating oil declines have occurred on or about Thanksgiving day,” he said.
The chart shows that oil futures fell $10 on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 2021. Crude tumbled 10% during Thanksgiving week in 2018 and declined nearly 14% in 2014, he added.

Garner’s explanation for why Thanksgiving tends to bring such pain for oil is that the week includes the last trading day for December oil futures and that there’s always an OPEC meeting in late November or early December.
“Throw in the fact that holiday weeks tend to have very light volume, that means any moves tend to get blown out of proportion because it doesn’t take [as] much to move a commodity — or a stock frankly — during these lighter periods,” Cramer said.
For more analysis, watch Cramer’s full explanation below.

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Taylor Swift’s tour promoter is shifting blame for the botched “Eras” ticket sale squarely onto the shoulders of Ticketmaster.
AEG Presents rejected claims made by Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s largest shareholder that the promoter chose to work with the ticketing site.
“Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the Eras tour required us to ticket through their system,” AEG said in a statement to CNBC. “We didn’t have a choice.”

Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage during the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Winter | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Taylor Swift’s tour promoter is shifting blame for the botched “Eras” ticket sale squarely onto Ticketmaster, potentially fueling even more concerns about the Live Nation-owned ticket seller’s dominant role in the industry.
AEG Presents, the company in charge of handling Swift’s upcoming tour, has rejected claims made by Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s largest shareholder, Liberty Media, that the promoter chose to work with the ticketing site.

“Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the ‘Eras’ tour required us to ticket through their system,” AEG said in a statement to CNBC. “We didn’t have a choice.”
Live Nation didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
AEG Presents’ comment is the latest show of finger-pointing after the public ticket sale was canceled last week in light of extreme demand. Swift herself blamed an “outside entity” and said she wouldn’t “make excuses for anyone.”

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