Roundup all today’s economic stats.

Initial Jobless Claims -404,000 for the week ending October 8 -Down 1,000 from previous week’s revised 405,000 (was 401k) -4-week moving average was 408,000, down 7,000 from previous week -Weekly creeping up from 400k-or-lower ‘improving’ line -The jobs market is still not healthy. Employers hire people when the anticipated increase in revenue generated by that [...]

Initial Jobless Claims -414,000 for week ended September 3 -Up 2,000 from previous week’s revised 412,000 (was 409k) -4-week Moving Average 414,750, up 3750 from previous week -Going the wrong way. Chart below Trade Balance (July) Trade Balance for July was -$44.9 billion. The is the (X-M) component of GDP. The Trade deficit was smaller [...]

Initial Jobless Claims -395,000 for week ended August 6 -Down 7,000 from previous week’s revised 402,000 -4-week moving average 405,000 -First time below 400,000 since April -Claims were 398k two weeks ago but revised to 401k In this Bloomberg piece, Alan Krueger of Princeton University explains his thinking about how we should start looking at [...]

Initial Jobless Claims – 427,000 for week ended June 4, up 1,000 from previous week. – 4-week moving average 424,000, down 2,750 from the previous week. – These data indicate a continually weak jobs market. European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet indicated that the ECB would raise rates next month to contain inflation. April [...]

Employees at a pizzeria in Ireland were fired for watching porn on the job. Isn’t that disgusting? Irish people attempting to make pizza! Small to Mid Size Mortgage Companies Expanding What isn’t disgusting is the number of mortgage companies which are interested in expanding. For example, First Centennial Mortgage, out of Illinois, is sending out [...]

No doubt the folks at Freddie Mac were tired of hearing people ask them about high-cost loan limits, and Thursday they released them. “Today, we are announcing that our base conforming loan limits will be maintained at their current 2009 levels for 2010, with the maximum loan limit for a 1-unit single-family property remaining at [...]

Cassius Clay preferred traveling in his own 1953 30-passenger bus. He said, “One good thing about a bus: If it breaks down, it doesn’t fall 30,000 feet”. Ali was also rumored to have the following conversation with a flight attendant on a trip where he couldn’t take a bus: Flight Attendant: “Buckle up, Champ”. Ali: [...]

I like attorneys, and feel that jokes about them are mean-spirited and unnecessary. (Like, “What happens when you give a lawyer Viagra? They get taller!”) Attorneys are certainly finding fruitful grounds in handling all of the recent mortgage fraud cases. Of course it takes the government a while to prosecute, and thus many of the [...]

Rates Up, Mortgage Apps Down, Stocks & Commodities Up The Mortgage Bankers Association of America announced that applications dropped last week due to higher rates. That is about as surprising as glam-rock singer and “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert announcing that he’s gay (which he did). U.S. mortgage applications fell last week to the lowest [...]