Card №1 Task Give the main idea of the text. When women run the economy

Card №27
Task 1. Give the main idea of the text.
Mortgage rates turned lower for the second straight week, but it wasn’t enough to boost demand for either new purchase loans or refinances, according to a weekly report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Rates are still much higher than they were for the past two years. Last week the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 5.46% from 5.49%, with points dropping to 0.60 from 0.74 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.
Applications to refinance a home loan dropped 2% for the week and were 75% lower than the same week one year ago.
“Most refinance borrowers continue to remain on the sidelines as a result, and refinance applications have fallen in nine of the past 10 weeks. Compared to January 2022, refinance activity is down 66%,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting.
Homebuyers are also pulling back. Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home were flat week to week and down 16% from a year ago.
More supply is coming on the market, but homes are suddenly sitting longer for sale.
Mortgage demand from homebuyers is now close to the lows last seen in spring 2020, at the start of the Covid pandemic. Homebuying quickly picked up after that, and frenzied demand pushed prices higher at an astounding rate over the past two years.
Now those high prices are sidelining potential buyers, especially people seeking to purchase their first home.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/25/mortgage-demand-slides-further-even-as-interest-rates-pull-back-slightly.html

Task 2. Describe the following graph.

Task 3. Speak on the topic: The Bank of England.

Card №28
Task 1. Give the main idea of the text.
For investors nearing retirement or already retired who need the certainty of cash but want to squeeze out a bit more yield, a certain investment in your 401(k) plan may fit the bill.
It’s called a stable value fund (or something similar) and typically is available only through defined contribution plans such as a 401(k). In simple terms, these low-risk funds aim to protect your principal and give you a bit more in earnings than you’d get in a money market fund.
However, they also don’t provide much growth, so they come with inflation risk — which means the value of your money could lose purchasing power. That makes these funds largely impractical for young savers whose retirement is decades away.
And because the fund is in your 401(k), you’d generally need to be at least age 59½ — when penalty-free withdrawals from retirement accounts can begin — to use the fund as a cash alternative. 
Roughly $908 billion is invested in these funds, according to the Stable Value Investment Association. Older investors are more likely to use them as they head toward retirement: Among 401(k) participants in their 60s, about 9.1% of assets are invested in stable value funds, research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/24/html

Task 2. Describe the following graph. Unemployment rate of Russia, %



Task 3. Speak on the topic: Bonds and Bond Market.