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Hundreds of investing and finance newsletters hit my (and maybe your) inbox every week. This is the best of the best of policy from the past week. Every Wednesday, we’ll wrap up finance, and every Friday, we’ll take on tech.

This week, we’ve got…

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Now, we know that markets are in a tizzy over the back-and-forth, will-they-won’t-they Trump-China 100% tariff situation that began last Friday. You can read all about Trump’s “Don’t worry about China” post in today’s edition of Stocks & Income (always free). Here, we’ll be covering the policy stuff you missed if you’re only focused on the tariff news.

So without further ado: Real estate investors now account for one-third of all single-family home purchases, reaching a five-year high in a tough market for traditional buyers. This means that investors obviously see opportunity, but it ALSO means that investors are the only ones with the cash to buy, because housing prices are at five times median income, according to a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies… study.

Small investors owning 10 properties or fewer make up over 90% of the investor-owned housing market, targeting properties at lower price points than the national average and creating both competition and opportunity for retail buyers (with money). Investors now own about 20% of the 86 million single-family homes in the country as of Q2.

Retail investors (with less money) are looking going for REITs (real estate investment trusts), which are stocks of companies that own and operate large real estate portfolios. Specifically, retail is going for REITs focused on single-family rentals in Texas, California, and Florida, where investor activity is highest but pricing remains below national averages. But, understandably, buying a little slice of heaven in hurricane country isn’t a risk many are willing to take.

Here are AltIndex’s favorite REITs at the moment:

AltIndex flagged that three days ago, Representative Val Hoyle disclosed 86 stock sales on September 23, just 17 days before the “100% tariffs on China” announcement from Trump. This could have been just “good timing,” but we wonder…

Hoyle didn’t just sell 86 times though; she bought four stocks: Amazon (AMZN), GoDaddy (GDDY), LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMHF), and McKesson (MCK).

AltIndex factors all congress trades into its stock ratings, which are updated constantly using alternative data like insider trading, Reddit and Twitter sentiment, hiring data, and more. Try it for 7 days free here →

The SEC has eased IPO processes during the federal shutdown, allowing companies to proceed with public offerings by setting prices 20 days ahead rather than requiring night-before approvals that would be impossible during the funding lapse. Quick, it’s time to go public with our Labubu competitor business that uses AI to make the dolls as ugly as possible!

Meanwhile, mortgage markets show borrowers increasingly turning to adjustable-rate mortgages to save on interest costs, with the ARM share jumping to 9.5% last week from 8.4% the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The absence of government economic data during the shutdown has kept bond markets relatively calm. For now, there’s a potential window to participate in IPOs that might otherwise have been delayed, but we’re staying cautious around mortgage-backed securities with growing ARM exposure. Presumably, this shutdown won’t last forever. Also presumably, the plot of The Big Short (2015) won’t play out again in our lifetimes, but you know what they say about presuming. Probably don’t do it.

Elected officials have had a tremendous amount of success in the market recently.

I want to keep you updated on what they’re trading and when—so you can leverage that intel as you plan out your own portfolio.

Data provided by AltIndex.

Remember to always DYOR.

That’s all for today. Write us and let us know your thoughts on the market, the newsletter, or the weather—we’d just love to hear from you.

Till next time,
— Brandon and Blake with Invested Inc.