Elliott's Blog

The National Association of Realtors reported this morning that home resales fell over 8% last month. This was the largest monthly decline on record and indicates that the housing sector is still rapidly weakening. This basically is good news because soft housing numbers are thought to be a drag ...

Mortgage rates are looking great. The have gone down by almost a half point from last week to this week. The adjustable rate mortgage rates are continuing to improve as well as the have been over the past few weeks, however, I would not normally recommend one. ARMs would be a great tool if we liv...

The Treasury auction is Thursday, when 5-year Notes will be sold. This will help gauge investor interest in bonds and could lead to a bond rally or selling. Results of these sales are posted at 1:00 PM ET, so any impact on trading and mortgage rates will come during afternoon hours. If investor d...

Weekly unemployment figures from the Labor Department and New Home Sales from the Commerce Department come out Thursday. Neither are considered to be very important since the unemployment numbers track only a week's worth of claims and the home sales report covers only approximately 15% of all ho...

Thursday morning, the Commerce Department will post Durable Goods Orders for September. This is the week's most important data. It gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking orders at U.S. factories for big-ticket items. Analysts are currently calling for an increase in n...

There is no relevant economic news scheduled for release today. The first report is September's Existing Home Sales late tomorrow morning. This report gives us an indication of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand. It is expected to show another decline in home resales, meaning the ...

This is going to be a moderately busy week in the financial and mortgage markets. There is not a great deal of economic news scheduled for release in the week, so the stock markets and investor appetite for stocks compared to safety of bonds will likely be the biggest influence on mortgage rates....

Overall, this is going to be a moderately busy week in the financial and mortgage markets. There is not a great deal of economic news scheduled for release in the week, so the stock markets and investor appetite for stocks compared to safety of bonds will likely be the biggest influence on mortga...

The week's last report comes at 10:00 AM ET Friday when the University of Michigan updates their Index of Consumer Sentiment for this month. Current forecasts show this index rising slightly from this month's preliminary reading of 82.0. This index is important because it helps us measure consume...

At 8:30 AM ET Thursday, the Commerce Department will post Durable Goods Orders for September. This report gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking orders at U.S. factories for big-ticket items. Analysts are currently calling for an increase in new orders of approximatel...