The prospect of a radical escalation in the global trade war in coming days has nearly doubled the probability of a recession in the U.S. economy in the next 12 months to around 35%, according to Goldman Sachs.
The Twin Cities again has the highest level of commercial real estate distress among all major U.S. metros. The Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA, had a 49.7% distress rate, which measures the current balances of CMBS loans that are distressed against all such loan balances. Behind Minneapolis, the metro areas of Providence, Rhode Island, saw a distress rate of 45.4%, while Rochester, New York, experienced a 35.7% distress rate. The overall distress rate for all loans across every metro was 10.8%, as of last month.
Dollar Tree agreed to a sale of its Family Dollar business to a consortium of private-equity investors for roughly $1 billion. Dollar Tree outbid its rival Dollar General to acquire the Family Dollar chain in 2015 for roughly $9 billion.
The average sale price of golf courses tracked reached more than $6.87 million last year, up 38% from an average of just under $5 million in 2023. The last time the average price reached that level was 2007, shortly before the financial crisis and Great Recession.
Park Avenue’s vacancy rate has fallen to 8.9%, its lowest rate since the end of 2018. Manhattan and U.S. office vacancy overall sits at 16.1%.
The FOMC voted to hold the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%. In its quarterly economic projection, the committee lowered its full-year 2025 GDP growth expectation to 1.7%, down from the 2.1% it forecast in December. The current unemployment rate is 4.1%, and the committee expects the median rate to be 4.4% at the end of the year.
U.S. existing-home sales rose 4.2% in February from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million. That was far better than economists estimated decrease of 3.2%.
Lincoln’s private-markets fund with Bain will invest in a cross section of credit, including loans to companies and loans to finance purchases of assets such as cars and real estate. A portion of the fund will also be invested in more easily traded assets. The vehicle will accept investors of any wealth level and allow them to cash out once a quarter. Lincoln thinks it is the first insurance company to launch private-market funds.
Nasdaq, long associated with its prime Times Square location, will open its first regional headquarters in Dallas. It’s the latest push by a New York institution into Texas, which is trying to unseat the Northeast as the epicenter of U.S. business.
