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Investopedia
17 m
15
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Homeowners are finally ready to list their homes, which could relieve some of the pressure weighing on the housing market.
According to a new report by Realtor.com, 11.6% more homes were newly listed in September than a year earlier, a three-year high. The new listings contributed to the highest number of active listings since April 2020. Buyers, meanwhile, toured more homes last month.
As mortgage rates fall from record highs, more homeowners are encouraged to list their homes. Homeowners who had bought or refinanced during ultra-low mortgage rates were hesitant to list their homes and give up their rates. This decreased home inventory and pushed home prices far higher than wages.
“Falling rates are an incentive for homeowners to sell because they know demand is coming back, and they feel less locked in by their relatively low rate,” said Max Shadle, a Redfin real estate agent in Phoenix, Ariz.
During the pandemic, the Federal Reserve dropped its federal funds rate to near zero in an effort to revive the economy and avoid a recession. The Fed’s rates influence mortgage rates, which fell to record lows in 2021, according to Freddie Mac. Homeowners took advantage of low mortgage rates to buy houses or refinance mortgages during that time.
As inflation began to flare up in 2021, the Fed lifted its fed funds rate to a 23-year high. Since mortgage rates typically follow the trajectory of interest rates, the Fed’s efforts to tame inflation also raised mortgage rates.
However, data from Freddie Mac showed that mortgage rates hit a two-year low a week after the Fed’s interest rate cut in September. At almost two percentage points lower than the peak from last October, more homeowners are willing to let go of their pandemic-era mortgage rates.
According to a Redfin report this week, homeowners listed 4.3% more houses the week after the Fed's decision.
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Healthwatch
47 m
15
By fighting off pathogens, the specialized cells of our immune systems help to keep us healthy and free of infectious diseases. Immunotherapies teach those same cells to recognize and destroy cancer. The drugs have been remarkably successful in treating melanoma — a type of skin cancer — as well as cancers of the lung, bladder, kidneys, and blood. Just one form of immunotherapy, a type of cancer vaccine, is currently approved for prostate cancer.
A new approach
Researchers at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California, are now reporting promising results with a different method called CAR-T cell therapy. It involves engineering immune cells called T cells after they've been obtained from a patient's own body. The engineered cells are studded with proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) that bind to specific molecular targets (antigens) on cancer cells.
Upon being returned to the body, the engineered CAR-T cells kill tumor cells expressing their target antigen. CAR-T cell treatments are currently approved only for blood cancers. The treatments can be highly effective against these diseases, but they also have challenging side effects, including in some cases a widespread inflammatory reaction known as cytokine release syndrome.
During their investigation, the researchers engineered CAR-T cells that bind specifically to a protein called prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA). PSCA is preferentially expressed at high levels in prostate tumors, particularly during advanced disease stages and after the cancer has spread to the bones.
The investigators treated 14 patients, all of them diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer that was no longer responding to hormonal therapy. Each patient was treated with 100 million CAR-T cells either with or without an additional treatment used to prevent a patient's other T cells from interfering in the anticancer attack. This other treatment is called lymphodepletion.
What the study showed
Results were encouraging: In four patients, levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) — which drop when prostate tumors shrink — declined by 30% or more. One patient had a greater than 90% decline in PSA during the 28-day monitoring period, as well as shrinking cancer in his bones and soft tissue. That positive response lasted for eight months. Five patients had mild cytokine release syndrome that was effectively treated, and two patients experienced cystitis, which is irritation of the bladder.
Unfortunately, the CAR-T cells did not persist at high levels beyond the monitoring period, and that could limit the treatment's effectiveness. The team plans to explore strategies to extend CAR-T-benefits in upcoming research.
Prostate cancer tends to be immunologically "cold," meaning that it's well hidden from the immune system. Most immunotherapies have therefore met with limited success against prostate cancer. But CAR-T offers a more powerful approach to overcoming tumor defenses, according to Dr. Tanya Dorff, a medical oncologist at City of Hope and the study's first author.
Observations
Dr. David Einstein, a medical oncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, points out that lymphodepletion can leave some patients vulnerable to infections. Given the added risk of cytokine release syndrome, CAR-T cell therapy will likely be suitable "only for a selected group of patients," he says.
"This is a different and more intensive treatment experience than hormonal therapy and even chemotherapy," he says. Still, he says, the results suggest that CAR-T therapy may emerge as an additional immunotherapeutic option for men with prostate cancer.
"This research is very encouraging," says Dr. Marc Garnick, the Gorman Brothers Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and editor in chief of the Harvard Medical School Guide to Prostate Diseases. "It represents the beginning of a completely novel method to eliminate cancer cells which have spread beyond the prostate gland, independent of the traditional methods for prostate cancer elimination that include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and various methods of radiation therapy.
"Because the CAR-T program uses a novel and exciting way of eliminating cancer cells, more work will be needed to help understand both the mechanism by which this occurs, and as Dr. Einstein emphasizes, methods to lessen the side effects associated with this new technology."
Source: Harvard Health Publishing
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Investopedia
1 h
9
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Major U.S. equities indexes moved higher on the final trading day of the week after the release of strong labor market data. The S&P 500 added 0.9% on Friday, while the Nasdaq jumped 1.2%, and the Dow gained 0.8%. All three indexes ended posted moderate gains for the week.
U.S. employers added 254,000 jobs in September, marking the quickest pace of hiring since March and blowing past economists' forecasts. The indication of resilience in the jobs market could lower the likelihood of another jumbo rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
Shares of lithium producers moved higher following reports that British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto (RIO) might be considering an acquisition in the lithium industry. Although Rio Tinto is well known for its copper, iron ore, and diamond business, the company produces lithium and is reportedly looking to expand, even as prices for the metal have been pressured by soft electric vehicle (EV) demand. Shares of Albemarle (ALB), the world's largest lithium producer, surged 8.2% on Friday, marking the top performance in the S&P 500.
United Airlines (UAL) shares gained 6.5% following reports that low-cost rival Spirit Airlines (SAVE) is considering a bankruptcy filing in the wake of its failed merger with JetBlue Airways (JBLU). Spirit is also said to be exploring options to restructure its balance sheet as it faces billions of dollars in debt. Spirit shares plummeted 24.6% on Friday, while JetBlue shares soared 14.2%.
Deckers Outdoor (DECK) shares added 6.4% on the day. The parent company of the Ugg, Hoka, and Teva footwear brands is a relatively fresh addition to the S&P 500, having joined the benchmark index in March. More recently, Deckers Outdoor completed a six-for-one stock split in September. Following the split, Baird analysts highlighted Deckers stock for its "best-in-class growth."
Extra Space Storage (EXR) shares dropped 3.9%, the biggest loss of any S&P 500 stock on Friday. The downtick for the self-storage real estate investment trust (REIT) came after regulatory filings revealed CEO Joseph D. Margolis sold around $1.34 million worth of shares in the company. Investors often consider significant sales by company insiders as a potential warning signal.
Shares of credit reporting agency Equifax (EFX) sank 3.4%. Earlier this week, UBS initiated coverage on Equifax stock with a "buy" rating, asserting that the company could be positioned to benefit from an expected normalization in the mortgage market. However, there could be less certainty around a mortgage recovery after today's jobs report, which raised questions about the likely pace of interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
Concerns about Fed rate cuts and the trajectory of mortgage rates weighed on companies in the homebuilding industry. Shares of homebuilders D.R. Horton (DHI) fell 2.9%, while shares of both Lennar (LEN) and PulteGroup (PHM) were down 2.5%.
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Instablog9ja
2 hrs
13
Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has launched the distribution of 21,924 bags of rice as part of the Federal Government’s food security programme.
The governor while launching the program at the Katsina People’s Square on Sunday, revealed that the aim was to alleviate the current economic hardship faced by the citizens.
According to him, the programme targets various segments of the population mostly the vulnerable women and youth groups at various ward and local government levels where a total of 6,652 polling units will be covered. Katsina State is in the North-West region of Nigeria.
He recalled that this is the second time, the Federal Government has distributed palliatives to Katsina State after the President recently procured fertilizer for farmers in the State to use for both wet and dry season farming. Governor Radda explained that Katsina State in this year’s farming season recorded a significant reduction in insecurity compared with last year when 95 percent of farmlands he said have been successfully cultivated.
“The State Government has also awarded N30 billion contracts to boost the agricultural sector of the State. This is what we have been doing to make life easier for the masses,” he stated.
On his part, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Atiku Bagudu maintained that the palliative measure aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda. He therefore commended the governor for his efforts in supporting vulnerable populations during these challenging times.
What You Need To Know Ahead Of AMD’s Advancing AI Event
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Is Gea...
Investopedia
2 hrs
12
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is gearing up to showcase new tech at its 2024 Advancing AI event on Thursday, which Bank of America analysts said could be a "catch-up catalyst" for the chipmaker.
AMD is expected to highlight its line of Instinct GPU accelerators and EPYC server processors at the event, and could potentially offer a glimpse into how it plans to capture a larger share of the AI accelerator market.
Analysts expect a followup to AMD’s MI300 series of accelerators launched in the fourth quarter of 2023. The company is off to a strong start in its first year of accelerator sales, Bank of America analysts said in a note Wednesday, guiding for more than $4.5 billion in sales this year.
The big question is how large of a market share can it command with Nvidia (NVDA) dominating the AI sector. The current analyst consensus suggests that AMD is expected to hold a roughly 5% to 7% share of the AI accelerator market over the next couple years (while Nvidia's share is north of 80%). However, if it could show a path to 10% by the end of 2026, the company would add about $5 billion in sales, Bank of America said.
What could help is the announcement of high-profile companies that use AMD's MI300 series accelerators. Analysts said they believe AMD's MI300X is already used by Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Meta (META), and others could be announced at the event.
Shares of AMD jumped nearly 10% the day after last year’s AI event in December, and could surge again after this year's event.
The stock climbed nearly 5% Friday to $170.90 and is up about 16% so far this year, thanks to surging AI demand.
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Instablog9ja
3 hrs
11
Delta Governor’s aide, Ossai Success, has criticized Pastor Jerry Eze for his guest list at his birthday party.
He said Pastor Jerry Eze shouldn’t have invited E-Money and Obi Cubana to his birthday. This is disappointing as we all know E-Money and Cubana aren’t genuinely Christians, considering their lifestyles.
Just as Bishop David Oyedepo didn’t invite them to his birthday despite their celebrity status, Pastor Jerry Eze, Lead Pastor of Streams of Joy International, shouldn’t have invited them, as this puts his faith into question.
If this guys were to be poor living a worldly lifestyle, I don’t think he would have invited them or associated himself with them but then they are rich Popular celebrities In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 6:14 states, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”
It’s disappointing that Pastor Jerry invited E-Money and Obi Cubana without encouraging them to commit to Jesus Christ. The birthday celebration should have been an opportunity to win souls for God, but after watching the birthday videos, I didn’t see E-Money or Obi Cubana give their lives to Jesus Christ.
