Few would disagree that economic recovery depends most heavily on jobs and housing recoveries. That’s why tomorrow’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report on December’s unemployment rate and jobs gained/lost is so important—and why rate markets will react wildly to it. Private payroll provider ADP’s December report was three times expectations and caused rates to rise
Rate Locks
Few would disagree that economic recovery depends most heavily on jobs and housing recoveries. That’s why tomorrow’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report on December’s unemployment rate and jobs gained/lost is so important—and why rate markets will react wildly to it. Private payroll provider ADP’s December report was three times expectations and caused rates to rise
In an interview with CNBC today, PIMCO chief Bill Gross covered a broad array of economic topics, most notably saying that “no one really knows—the banks, Fannie or Freddie, the Treasury, the Fed, PIMCO—no one really knows where the bottom is for housing.” He said that as prices keep going down it perpetuates a cycle
A note to all Realtors who don’t listen to sports or business radio: the head of mortgage broker Lenox Financial compares your job and career to that of a cab driver in his latest radio spot. This is the guy who runs ads that ask consumers to call into one of his call center monkeys
Fixed and ARM rates are up slightly this week on mortgage bond weakness. Factory orders came in stronger than expected today, and bonds took this as a subtle sign that the Fed may only cut 25 basis points instead of 50. They’ve already cut 175 basis points in the past 4 months, and it typically
The economy was growing steadily earlier in 2004 , but cooled off significantly this summer. Nevertheless, the Fed continues to wean us from overly-cheap money. They’ve raised the benchmark Fed Funds Rate by a half-point to 1.5% since June 30. Interestingly though, mortgage rates have held close to their lows. This month, I wanted to