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Hysan, Chinachem’s HK$19.8 billion bid wins first plot of land in Causeway Bay to be auctioned by Hong Kong government since 1997

FuboTV, Unity Software, Palantir, Houlihan Lokey: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

Weekly mortgage refinance demand jumps on brief drop in rates

Real estate agents leave a home for sale during a broker open house in San Francisco, California.Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesA brief drop in mortgage interest rates sent some borrowers rushing to their lenders to see if they could get any savings. That sent total mortgage application volume up 2.1% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($548,250 or less) decreased to 3.11% from 3.18%, with points decreasing to 0.32 from 0.34 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. That is the lowest rate since February, and it is 32 basis points lower than one year ago.As a result, applications to refinance a home loan, which have been weak lately, increased 3% from the previous week but were still 12% lower than a year ago, according to the MBA’s seasonally adjusted index. The refinance share of mortgage activity was essentially unchanged.”The decline in rates helped the refinance index reach its highest level in eight weeks, driven by a 4 percent increase in conventional refinances,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting. “Additionally, refinance loan

Housing-Market Surge Is Making the Cheapest Homes the Hottest

In Reversal, Retirements Increased During the Pandemic

Job losses, rather than rising asset values, seem to be the main cause in upending a decades-long trend.After decades in which it decreased, the retirement rate rose during the pandemic, according to the latest government data. This makes retirement one exception to the many ways that the pandemic accelerated pre-existing trends, such as toward suburbanization and online shopping.In the year since the pandemic started — the 12 months ending in March 2021 — 17.0 percent of Americans aged 55 to 64 were retired, up from 16.8 percent in the two previous years. But this is still a lower percentage than in earlier decades. The retirement rate rose more for people 65 to 74: It was 65.6 percent in the year up to March 2021, versus 64.0 percent in the year before the pandemic. That brought the rate back up almost to its level in 2011, though still below its 2001 level. What can explain this trend during the pandemic? Job losses and business closings could have prompted some older workers to retire earlier than they’d expected, a pattern seen in previous recessions. Another factor: Older workers were more at risk than younger ones from the coronavirus. At the same

U.S. Stock Futures Edge Down Ahead of Inflation Data

Hongkongers snap up celebrity-owned homes in London as star power adds value to property

For Clean Energy, Buy American or Buy It Quick and Cheap?

President Biden says slowing climate change will create jobs. Tension between unions and environmentalists shows it’s not so simple.Patricia Fahy, a New York State legislator, celebrated when a new development project for the Port of Albany — the country’s first assembly plant dedicated to building offshore wind towers — was approved in January.“I was doing cartwheels,” said Ms. Fahy, who represents the area.Before long, however, she was caught in a political bind.A powerful union informed her that most of the equipment for New York’s big investment in offshore windmills would not be built by American workers but would come from abroad. Yet when Ms. Fahy proposed legislation to press developers to use locally made parts, she met opposition from environmentalists and wind industry officials. “They were like, ‘Oh, God, don’t cause us any problems,’” she recalled.Since President Biden’s election, Democratic politicians have extolled the win-win allure of the transition from fossil fuels, saying it can help avert a looming climate crisis while putting millions to work. “For too long we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis: jobs, jobs, jobs,” Mr. Biden said in an address to Congress last month.Interior Secretary Deb

SoftBank-backed mortgage lender Better going public via $7.7 billion SPAC

Pedestrians walk past signage for SoftBank Group outside a store in Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 29, 2018.Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesDigital mortgage lender Better.com announced Tuesday that it will make its market debut by merging with Aurora Acquisition Corp., valuing Better at $7.7 billion.The company, ranked No. 15 on last year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, was most recently valued at $6 billion following an April 2020 investment from SoftBank. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Japanese tech conglomerate agreed to give all of its voting rights to co-founder and CEO Vishal Garg “in a sign of its eagerness” to back the company.The New York City-based company was started in 2016 by Garg, a former analyst with Morgan Stanley, after a deal to buy a house for his family fell through. An all-cash buyer was able to beat the timing of his traditional mortgage lender, and that’s when Garg figured there had to be a better way. He used the down payment he had set aside to start Better.Better’s platform moves the mortgage process completely online, giving customers the ability to upload and eSign documents, and claims to cut the closing time from an industry average of 42 days down to 21 days.

Wind Project Shows Democratic Tensions Over Energy

President Biden says slowing climate change will create jobs. Tension between unions and environmentalists shows it’s not so simple.In January, Patricia Fahy, a New York State legislator, was celebrating a new development project for the Port of Albany: the country’s first assembly plant dedicated to building offshore wind towers. “I was doing cartwheels,” said Ms. Fahy, who represents the area.Before long, however, she was caught in a political bind.A powerful union informed her that most of the equipment for New York’s big investment in offshore windmills would not be built by American workers but would come from abroad. Yet when Ms. Fahy proposed legislation to press developers to use locally made parts, she met opposition from environmentalists and wind industry officials. “They were like, ‘Oh, God, don’t cause us any problems,’” she recalled.Since President Biden’s election, Democratic politicians have extolled the win-win allure of the transition from fossil fuels, saying it can help avert a looming climate crisis while putting millions to work. “For too long we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis: jobs, jobs, jobs,” Mr. Biden said in an address to Congress last month.But there is a tension between