RECENT BLOG POSTS
As of Friday, stocks were up six out of seven days, so all three major market indexes were up for the week again. This followed two straight weeks of stock declines, but 2011 was forecast from the beginning to be a very volatile year on Wall Street. Investors seemed less worried about Japan's nuc...
03/29/2011
The famously successful Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway made his observation a month ago in his annual letter to shareholders. The Oracle of Omaha is certainly aware of the state of the housing market and added: "A housing recovery will probably begin within a year or so." These encouraging words ...
03/29/2011
Forecasting Federal Reserve policy changes in coming months...There's a little more sentiment for a rate hike from the Fed in the second half of the year, as the economy slowly improves. But no change is expected in the near future. Note: In the lower chart, a 1% probability of change is a 99% c...
03/29/2011
Economic news reports scheduled for this week: Date Time (ET) Release For Consensus Prior Impact MMar 28 08:30 Personal Income Feb 0.3% 1.0% Moderate MMar 28 08:30 Personal Spending Feb 0.5% 0.2% HIGH MMar 28 08:30 PCE Prices - Core Feb 0.2% 0.1% HIGH MMar 28 10:00 Pending Home Sales Jan 0.3% -...
03/29/2011
Fannie Mae's 3% down payment loan is making a comeback. after mortgage insurance firm Mortgage Guarantee Insurance Company (MGIC), has announced that it will issue mortgage insurance for the 97% LTV loans where the down payment was gifted. That means a buyer can essentially buy a home with $0 do...
03/21/2011
The Fed's FOMC Policy Statement last week said that they weren't worried about inflation and that although the economy is improving, the recovery isn't strong enough to withstand a rise in interest rates. So economists are forecasting the Funds Rate to stay where it is well into the second half ...
03/21/2011
February isn't usually a top month for home sales and the experts don't expect that situation to change. Monday's Existing Home Sales for February are expected to be down from January, coming in at a 5.05M annual rate. But Wednesday's New Home Sales for February should be up slightly from the pri...
03/21/2011
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GDP is an acronym tossed out all the time and most folks know that it refers to Gross Domestic Product (once called GNP or Gross National Product). But what is GDP? GDP is the total final value of all U.S. goods and services produced in a year: all consumer, investment and government spending, pl...
03/21/2011
As of Friday, a nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima complex had been averted, but that didn't stop stocks from having their own meltdown. Investors sold off holdings, worried over Japan's nuclear crisis, Libya's civil war spreading to other oil producers, as well as the European Union's lingeri...
03/21/2011
Well, journalists had plenty of their kind of news to write about with last week's housing reports. The bad stuff began with February Housing Starts dropping 22.5% to a level close to the April 2009 low, which was the lowest on record. Most of the drop was from multi-family starts, which are vola...
03/21/2011