Restrictive? We know it depends/Company comments of note/Yields up again globally

The answer over the question of whether the Federal Reserve policy is restrictive or not is, of course, it depends. We know that anything reliant on borrowing is more challenged and that was seen today with the March US Architecture Billings Index which fell sharply to 43.6 from 49.5 with all four regions of the country well below 50. The Commercial/Industrial component fell the most, to 42.9 from 46.1 while multi family remains well under 50 at 44.2 vs 44.9 in February. The chief economist there said simply, "Elevated construction costs coupled with prolonged high interest rates continue to discourage new project activity."

Housing too is feeling the rate pressure as we know. With mortgage rates ticking up again, purchase applications fell 1% w/o/w and are down 15% y/o/y. Refi's were down 5.6% w/o/w, though are up 3.3% y/o/y, bouncing along a multi decade bottom for obvious reasons.

Refi's

Purchases

With so many earnings reports, lets jump right in to a few of note. 

From Visa, who continues to benefit from more people using card and less cash when they spend as the source of payment:

"US payment volume grew 6% y/o/y and international payments volume grew 11%...Cross border volume growth excluding intra-Europe was up 16% y/o/y in constant dollars." E-commerce they said was particularly as was 'tap to pay.' 

"First, the extra day for the leap year was a benefit to the quarter. This was offset primarily by slowing payments volume growth in Asia-Pacific, mostly due to macroeconomic weakness in Mainland China."

Further with cross border with Asia-Pacific, "We see the primary drivers being; one, macroeconomic weakness in key markets like Australia and Mainland China; two, weakness in some Asia-Pacific currencies, which is impacting consumer purchasing power, particularly for Japan; and three, airline capacity that is still below 2019 levels, particularly the Mainland China and North American corridor." Cross border business outside of this seems to be better.

In the US, “Consumer spend across all segments from low to high spend has remained relatively stable.” 

From Texas Instruments, whose stock is popping this morning: