Archive for July, 2008
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) hit the highest levels of
2008 during the week ended July 24 according to Freddie Mac's
Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
"Market concerns about rising inflation and the greater probability
that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will raise short-term rates this year all
combined to push mortgage rates higher this ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Whatever else is going on in the housing market, it appears that
Americans are no longer using their homes as gigantic credit
cards to finance new cars, tuition, and vacations.
Freddie Mac's report on cash-out refinancing for the first half of
2008 showed that the number of homeowners taking that option ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
On Tuesday evening, the Securities and Exchange Commission
extended its emergency rule limiting short selling of
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and 17 brokerage firms to Aug. 12.
"The commission will continue exploring other remedies for the broader
marketplace to further protect inventors from distort and short artists,"
said SEC Chairman ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Following the release of the ADP private employment
report on Wednesday, which posted a gain of 9k jobs in July,
economists dismissed the figures as overly optimistic
and predicted they won't be reflected in the BLS nonfarm payrolls survey
on Friday.
Speaking on CNBC, Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors and ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
In addition to the $75 billion 28-day Term Auction Facility (TAF), the
Fed will also be conducting a $25 billion 84-day TAF to address the
ongoing "fragility" of the financial system. The Fed
also said it would be extending its extraordinary lending to late January
2009.
"In light of continued ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Weekly mortgage applications declined in the week
ending July 25, according to data released from the Mortgage Bankers'
Association (MBA) on Wednesday, which reported a 14.1% week-over-week
fall in applications.
In the previous week, applications fell 6.2%.
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
The ADP employment report will be the most closely looked at economic
event of the day ahead of Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls. In Canada,
markets will receive industrial product and raw material prices for June
followed by an auction of five-year government bonds. Meanwhile, energy
traders will be looking at ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Is it possible that some of the collapses and near misses in the
financial markets over the last six months will ultimately be tied to a
few sick and/or greedy people who have used rumors and
innuendo to manipulate the market? Government regulators
are looking at such a scenario starting ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
The Conference Board's consumer confidence index for
July improved to 51.9 in Tuesday's report, against expectations
of a slight decline to 50.0. Some economists were expecting such an
improvement following the upward revisions in the Reuters/U of Michigan
sentiment index last week, which bumped up to 61.2 from the preliminary ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Consumer confidence for July and the S&P/Case-
Shiller's home price index for May will be the main focus of
Tuesday's economic events with no major macroeconomic releases expected
for Canada. Across the Atlantic, market participants will also be looking
out for preliminary results of German CPI for July.
Read More ...
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