Nov 28-Dec 2 concise outlook on rates, stocks, holiday shopping, jobs, home prices, Europe, QE3 rumors.

A word from the trenches on why homebuyers are getting cold feet.

Rates benefit from political paralysis. And a recap of existing home sales.

Initial Jobless Claims -403,000 for the week ending October 15 -Down 6,000 from previous week’s revised 409,000 (was 404k) -4-week moving average was 403,000, down 6,250 from previous week -While the 4-week average continues to decline, this is not a picture of a healthy jobs market. It appears more as a picture of a jobs [...]

Existing Home Sales (August) -Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate 5,030,000 -Previous was 4,670,000 -Month/Month Change +7.7% -Full report from NAR -Below is a chart of monthly Existing Home Sales (grey bars) and mortgage rates (brown line.) The value if that chart is mitigated by the First Time Homebuyer credit which expired April 2011. People not in [...]

Consumer Inflation -CPI Month/Month: +0.5% -CPI Year/Year: +3.6% -Core CPI Month/Month (less food & energy): +0.2% -Core CPI Year/Year (less food & energy): +1.8% -This retail inflation is always difficult to explain because while it is most certainly the overall number which affects everyone, it is core which is of interest to economists because core [...]

Existing Home Sales -4.77m annual rate for June, down from 7.08m 2005 peak -Down 0.8% since May and down 8.8% since June 2010 -Median home price $184,300, up 0.8% from June 2010. -Distressed homes accounted for 30% of June sales -Inventory rose 3.3% to 3.77 million existing homes for sale -This is a 9.5-month supply [...]

Existing Home Sales: – May: 4.81 Million (annualized) – May Month/Month: -3.8 %, a 6mo low – May Year/Year: -15.3 % – Home Sales remain weak: 9.3mo of supply on market excluding pre-foreclosures.

After a four week rally that set new 2011 lows, rates are up slightly on net mortgage bond selling since yesterday. Bond yields (or rates) are now back up to the previous 2011 low level set March 16 after the Japanese earthquake and ‘not-a-war’ in Libya reached peak panic levels.

Initial Jobless Claims: -409,000 last week (previous was 434,000. Consensus was 425,000) -439,000 4-week average moving average -At present, 409,000 is considered relatively good for economy, bad for rates. -This datum was a shot of morning coffee as Treasuries sold on it but will likely recover as the day progresses. 409,000 Jobless Claims is not [...]