Harris Poll of BNPL is must read/Other consumer comments/BoE wants to cut, BoJ wants to hike

A few of you mentioned that you weren't able to open the BREIT article I sent a link for yesterday, if not and still interested in reading it, email me a request and I'll send in a different form, peter.boockvar@bleakley.com

It's clear where commercial real estate construction is not much taking place in, that being for office buildings, multi family, industrial, for example, as all deal with excess supply. It's also clear where it is taking place, for government incentivized chip and battery plants, among other things but also for data centers. The April Dodge Momentum Index (measuring construction) rose to 173.9 from 164 in March and they said it "saw positive progress in April alongside a deluge of data center projects that entered the planning stage. Outsized demand to build Cloud and AI infrastructure is supporting above average activity in the sector."

On the flip side, "Most other categories, however, faced slower growth over the month. Across these industries, it's likely that owners and developers are grappling with uncertainty around interest rates and lending standards, thus delaying their decisions to push projects into the planning queue."

I'll argue again, from what I'm seeing, the US economy is remarkably mixed and uneven. 

Let's talk Buy Now, Pay Later in light of the Affirm earnings yesterday and this Bloomberg article I read yesterday talking about a Harris Poll of users of BNPL. "A recent survey conducted by Bloomberg News by Harris Poll found that 43% of those who owe money to BNPL services said they were behind on payments, while 28% said they were delinquent on other debt because of spending on the platforms."

Also, "More than half of respondents who use BNPL said it allowed them to purchase more than they could afford, while nearly a quarter agreed with the statement that their BNPL spending was 'out of control.' Harris also found that 23% of users said they couldn't afford the majority of what they bought without splitting payments, while more than a third turned to the services after maxing out credit cards. The findings also show that the spending, which for more than a third of users has exceeded $1,000, isn't entirely on big-ticket items. Almost half of those using BNPL say they've started, or have considered, using it to pay bills or buy essential items, including groceries."