First Time Home Buyers
From the monthly archives: May 2008
Mortgage Bonds and Stocks are both trading slightly higher today. There is very little economic news scheduled for this week so technical factors should drive the market.
In general, Bonds are sitting above support and the S&P is sitting just below resistance. Should stocks fail to break that ceiling, mortgage rates could see a [...]
Continue Reading →What a crazy, crazy year.
Here is what is happening: In yesterday’s trading session, we saw a wild swing for the better in an interesting day. Yesterday’s rally was largely spurred by discussions of regulating the trading of commodities. Essentially, speculation in these markets is an inflation risk so the discussion to regulate these [...]
Continue Reading →Mortgage bonds are trading up today on three pieces of early news.
A report this morning revealed greater foreign purchases of US Bonds than initially anticipated. The report of $80.4 billion beat estimates of $62.5 billion. This increased foreign interest is good for bonds and means that we can see slightly lower rates in [...]
Continue Reading →Inflation came in better than expected. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased only .2% while experts were expecting .3%. Surprisingly, energy prices were lower than forecast although food jumped .9%, their largest gain in 18 years.
Bonds took a beating yesterday and Chicago mortgage rates are higher today in spite of the moderate recovery [...]
Continue Reading →Retail Sales came in hotter than expectations of .2% in reporting .5%. This is somewhat surprising given the significant increases to gas prices in the past month.
The Fed continues to speak about inflation concerns in their speaking engagements. This makes sense given the concerns over consumer pricing on food and energy. Additionally, the [...]
Continue Reading →The Federal Housing Administration released massive changes last week to FHASecure, a program launched in August in response to a housing crisis that threatened borrowers of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) with foreclosure.
Initially, FHASecure was available only to borrowers who fell into delinquency after lower rates on ARMs reset to higher adjusted rates.
In April, [...]
Continue Reading →Today has been relatively quiet with no economic reports scheduled for release.
Bonds are trading above the 50- and 100-day moving averages so these should act as layers of support. Barring anything significant in the stock market, bonds should largely follow technical factors today.
Chicago mortgage rates are slightly higher than this time [...]
Continue Reading →Bonds opened the day trading significantly higher (better for rates) and have since reversed.
Weighing down the stock market today is the news from American International Group (AIG) who yesterday reported a huge loss and now is looking to raise $12.5 Billion in fresh capital.
Oil hit $126 a barrel today. Aside from [...]
Continue Reading →The main report today was the Initial Jobless Claims report which was actually slightly lower than expected, 365,000 claims versus an expectation of 375,000.
Our four-week average now sits at 367,500 which is not a strong reading for the economy as a whole.
The weak signals from the labor market have helped mortgage [...]
Continue Reading →Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig spoke last night referencing the inflationary pressures as “troublesome” and if inflation gets too high, the economy could suffer greatly. As we’ve discussed before in these posts, inflation devalues fixed investments (such as your 30 Year Fixed rate) for individuals and institutions.
In turn, these [...]
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