Don’t miss: Mozilla Chief R&D Officer Sean White will join a panel of speakers for the third edition of the Resiliency Series, a webcast presented by NexusLA, Opportunity Machine and The Idea Village. This week’s free webcast will be Friday, May 15, at 2:45 p.m., and will feature a discussion about how to use opportunities in the current crisis and plan for the future. Those interested in attending can register online here.
Ripple effects: Wholesale prices slid a record 1.3% in April led by a 19% plunge in the cost of energy, further signaling the potential threat of deflation in the U.S. The Labor Department said that its producer price index, which measures inflation before it reaches the consumer, fell by the largest level on records dating to 2009 as the disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic rattled the U.S. and the global economy. The report this morning comes one day after the U.S. said consumer prices declined 0.8% in April, the steepest month-to-month fall since the 2008 financial crisis. Read the full story.
Property values: ATTOM Data Solutions, a property database curator, today released its first-quarter 2020 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, which shows that 14.5 million residential properties in the U.S. were considered equity-rich, meaning the combined estimated amount of loans secured by those properties was 50% or less of their estimated market value. The report also shows that just 3.6 million, or one in 15, mortgaged homes in the first quarter of 2020 were considered seriously underwater, representing 6.6% of all U.S. properties with a mortgage, up slightly from 6.4% in the prior quarter. Read the full report.
