Macro Briefing: 23 July 2024

* Harris secures enough delegates to become Democratic party’s nominee
* US regulator finds weak risk management at over half of major banks
* Cyber-security startup Wiz rejects Google’s $23 billion acquisition offer
* Ethereum ETFs approved by SEC set to start trading
* US economic growth shows signs of stabilizing in June:

Has the worst passed for homebuyers? “June, in particular, has started to show the housing market slowing down in favor of buyers,” says Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s chief economist. Meantime, Rick Sharga, founder of real estate consulting firm CJ Patrick Company, predicts that the market will become increasingly buyer-friendly from here on out. “We’re sitting today at probably, if not the worst affordability ever, really close to the worst affordability ever — so we almost have nowhere to go but up,” Sharga says. “I do believe we’re past the worst.” Homebuilder stocks seem to agree: the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) has rallied in recent days and is close to a record high: