Median home prices just reached a record high last month of $419,300 in the US, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Part of the reason for those high prices is that people have been holding onto their homes — and phones and cars! — longer. They’re doing so in part because they can’t afford new homes at those prices, which in turn drives prices up even more.
The number of Americans who’ve been unemployed for over 27 weeks hit 1.9 million in August.
Elon Musk’s $1 billion purchase of Tesla shares sent the stock soaring this morning — along with his personal wealth. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine calculated that the share price rise thanks to Musk’s purchase was enough to raise the total value of his stock by $17 billion.
However, as Levine also pointed out, it’s not as if Musk will realize that gain any time soon:
“If you could spend $1 billion to make yourself $17 billion richer, and then cash out that $17 billion, that would be an amazing trade and you should do it all day long. But in practice, if buying $1 billion of stock makes your stock go up by $17 billion, then selling that $17 billion of stock will make your stock go down by much more.”
