We’re in the final countdown for a debt ceiling deal. Beltway pressures are high as politicians passionately belt out their tax hike budget cut lyrics to excitable constituents. So this installment of bTunes is The Final Countdown from cheese metal gods Europe. Because if we can’t agree on America’s budget war, we can agree that
July 2011
June Producer Inflation -Overall PPI Month/Month: -0.4% -Core PPI Month/Month: +0.3% -Overall PPI Year/Year: +7% -Core PPI Year/Year: +2.4% -Lower energy costs this month. This is also a time to remind that ‘Overall’ is a better macroeconomic indicator because it smooths out the volatility of energy and food prices. June Retail Sales -Overall Retail Sales
Lots of great links today, including one on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s early priorities. To which I’ll lead in which this excerpt from Rob: “Phil Hall wrote ‘Next week is the premiere of two highly anticipated endeavors: the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). One of
Lots of great links today, including one on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s early priorities. To which I’ll lead in which this excerpt from Rob: “Phil Hall wrote ‘Next week is the premiere of two highly anticipated endeavors: the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). One of
JPMorgan Chase weighed in with 2Q earnings results, the first of the “big boys” that smaller mortgage banks follow closely. The company had net income of $5.4 billion on revenue of $27.4 billion, up 7% from the prior year. Here’s an excerpt on their mortgage business: “With respect to our mortgage portfolio, delinquency and net
Going forward, I’ll be guest blogging at industry trade mag National Mortgage Professional (NMP)—they’ve got lots of consumer friendly content in addition to their industry-targeted pieces. My first post for them is on the state of mortgage media, which I think is behind the times … and the consumer comes up short because of it.
-Fed Wants Out & Here’s Their Plan (HSH) -Can’t Sell Your Home? Consider Renting It (MSNBC) -Sorry & Pity of Another Liquidity Trap (Bloomberg) -Cost of owning 150,000 foreclosed homes (NPR via RC) -US Debt A Bad Bet But Gross Buying Anyway (InvestmentNews) -Will Fed Really Need to Sell Mortgage Bonds? (MortgageNewsDaily) -Countries Where Global
I am smart enough to realize that I am not smart enough to know, “Why the focus is more on the debt ceiling than on actually reducing our deficit?” To me, it seems like an artificial waste of time and energy—raising the debt ceiling has happened 10 times since 2001, and our government spends a
Here are two must-watch videos from last night’s Daily Show. Fans/detractors of Reagan’s legacy should especially watch second video: ‘Tax Cut Religion’.
It is my belief that QE2 weakened the dollar causing a spike in commodity prices and that spike has ended. The one commodity which is “in a class by itself” is gold. Gold is not a consumable. Its value has been gaining because the perception is that the value of fiat currencies is weakening. We
Retail Sales -ICSC-Goldman Store Sales Week/Week: +0.4% -ICSC-Goldman Store Sales Year/Year: +5.5% -Redbook Store Sales Year/Year: 5.4% Consumer Metrics Index of Online Retail Sales: “We are becoming more convinced with each passing week that the rate of contraction of on-line consumer demand for discretionary durable goods “bottomed” at the end of May 2011. The climb
In addition to weekly market activity affecting bonds and rates, stock performance is also of course a big factor, especially during earnings season. Here’s a chart from Bespoke Investment Group showing earnings reports by volume this quarter. Click image for a list of companies reporting this week.
Why is the jobs market not recovering? To a large extent, the state of the jobs market is what will determine the outcome of the 2012 elections. To start, I want to make clear that it has always been my belief that there is little that the President and Congress can do to create jobs.
Rates were down .125% to end last week, regaining half of the .25% rise from the week before. As the last WeeklyBasis noted: “Jobs would have to be worse than already-low expectations” for rates to improve, and that’s exactly what happened, with only 18k non-farm payrolls created vs. 110k expectations. Safer assets like mortgage bonds
Snapshot below. Click for details. Data highlights: consumer and business inflation, retail sales, New York region manufacturing, and $66b in Treasury auctions not shown here: $32b 3yr Note 7/12, $21b 10yr Note 7/13, $13b 30yr Bond 7/14. WeeklyBasis report coming shortly on what it all means.
CONFORMING RATES ($200,000 to $417,000) 0 POINT 30 Year: 4.625% (4.745% APR) FHA 30 Year: 4.375% (4.495% APR) 5/1 ARM: 3.25% (3.37% APR) SUPER-CONFORMING RATES ($417,001 to $729,750 cap by county) 0 POINT 30 Year: 4.75% (4.87% APR) FHA 30 Year: 4.5% (4.62% APR) 5/1 ARM: 3.375% (3.495% APR) JUMBO RATES ($729,751 to $2,00,000) 1
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