January 3-6 outlook for rates, stocks, jobs, manufacturing, retail

San Francisco’s Haight Street always puts things in perspective. (PHOTO)

One might conclude that the success of Black Friday was at the expense of last week.

Retail Traffic Magazine is all over holiday stats and links.

Hotter than expected November business inflation and retail sales are causing a massive 70 basis point mortgage bond selloff this morning, and rates rise when bond prices drop in a selloff. If this selloff holds, 30yr fixed rates will settle at 5%. We’ll get the Fed’s latest views on economic growth, inflation and rate policy [...]

BusinessInsider just posted a good roundup of Black Friday holiday shopping stats from David Bodamer, chief editor since 2006 of Retail Traffic, a retail real estate trade magazine. Below are his quick summaries of data from core reports along with links to original reports. Bodamer’s full post also has highlights from each report and some [...]

For guys who don’t know about Bonobos, it’s a men’s mail order clothing company. They started in 2007 with pants and have expanded significantly since then, but pants are their strong suit. Normally I’d never buy a pair of pants without trying them on, but Bonobos dress pants fit most people well (only needing a [...]

Stampeding shoppers woken by a ‘coked up rooster’ go nuts for post-Thanksgiving bargains. Hey, whatever helps the economy…

After touching the lowest levels on official record before Thanksgiving (see link), rates are now about .1% higher than that. Rates change daily as mortgage bonds trade. Rates held lows coming into this week due to scares about Dubai’s ability to service their debt, and as that subsided, we end the week with the best [...]

I usually try to keep my opinions out the daily commentary. But I am really becoming irked by the press. One day they complain about our industry having foreclosure problems and the credit crisis here in the US and in the world. And then the next day they complain about the declining rate of mortgage [...]