Happy Friday to all,

Wanted to take a quick break to get some information out to everyone after all the reports came out today, and some of it is a bit surprising. The Labor Department announced that the headline jobs number posted less than the expected 95,000 gain that most experts expected, coming in at only 80,000. The surprising bit was that the national jobless rate dropped down to 9.0 for October, which was not expected. Almost at the very second, those inexperienced, high emotion driven investors sprinted out to purchase stocks. Kind of like those runners that sprint out at the beginning of a long distance race, who ultimately run out of fuel early as everyone else ultimately passes them midway through the race. [Read more...]

Happy Friday to all,

Another stellar day to follow up a not so stellar day for mortgage backed securities. Funny how this short-term profit taking works almost like clockwork. Yesterday was like “Déjà vu all over again”, to borrow a phrase from the great Yogi Berra. But you may have heard that once again, a deal had been struck to help ailing Euro Banks and their debt crisis. Investors were giddy, markets were rebounding, stocks were flying off the shelves again, but hold on, “not so fast” (Lee Corso), a deal indeed had been struck, but there is no plan in place yet for the deal! Investors are once again, concerned that this may not be over yet, thus causing fiscal concern over the state of the ‘Euro Zone’ economy, and thus the U.S. The beneficiary of this not-so-great economic news? You got it, MBS and Bond market. Remember, as I have always told you, during uncertain economic times, investors will put their money into safer assets such as mortgage-backed securities and bonds. So MBS are having their day, and it’s almost completely wiping out the losses we saw yesterday as rates jumped up over ? percent. Mortgage backed securities are currently up 14/32 and the Dow is up 20 points and the NAZ just barely hanging tough at 1% on the board as I write this. [Read more...]

Happy Friday all, the good news is the economy is showing some signs of improvement, albeit, nothing to get overly excited about. The bad news is, the economy is showing some signs of improvement. Basically good news for the economy is typically bad news for rates, but it is what it is. Mortgage Backeds are currently down 9 and the DOW and NAZ are churning away at plus 166 and 47 respectively. What happened you say? Reports came in today, better than expected for retail sales in the U.S. Overall sales last month rose by a better than anticipated 1.1%, largely due to strong car sales. Taking out autos, sales pace was up .6%, which was almost double than what the “experts” had guessed. 10 of the 13 most important components of this data, showed increases last month.

Since we all know consumer spending makes up almost 70% of all economic acitivity in the U.S., and the data released today suggests domestic growth is showing signs of life, you are going to see investors purchase stocks in favor of the bonds, and the MBS and that is never a good recipe for lower mortgage rates.

So are rates going to go through the roof now? No because there are still two very important components, the ‘wild card’ if you will, unemployment and the European Debt Crisis. With both of these unresolved, this will help to counter the positive data for the economy. Not enough to counteract completely, but enough to keep the interest rate rise, subtle.

On to the rates!

SFR with 20% down can be leveraged at 5.125%
2-4 Unit properties with 25% down can be leveraged at 4.875%

That’s it for me, everyone have a safe and fun weekend, rest up, and Get er Done!

BawldGuy Here: Need to speak with Chad? Call him at (210) 557-6320. Tell him I sent ya.

Happy Friday Investors!

OK, we are having a pretty good day as far as mortgage rates are concerned, as mortgage backeds (the driver of mortgage interest rates) are posting a +10 reading. They have been as high as +19 earlier this morning, but seem to be holding just fine. There’s been a lot of activity at the Wall this week and today is no exception. Now some thought that the recent climb in rates was a sign of the American Economy waking up from it’s slumber. But today it hit the snooze button. Turns out that all of that selling going on in the bond market, and the purchasing of stocks, was not a reflection of investors having confidence in the economy, it was merely a market correction.

Remember from my last post, typically when Wall Street has a large sell off day and a couple hundred point drop in the Dow, the market is then ripe for a correction — and investors can’t resist buying up stocks at such bargain prices. Right now investors are disenchanted at the economy’s poor performance, so they would rather make quick, short-term profits by purchasing stocks and most times it’s at the expense of the bond market, but quickly turning around and selling them as soon as there is potential for a minimum profit. It’s risky, but it’s the only way you can really make any profit during a slow economic time like now. Not for the faint of heart, or an unseasoned investor. [Read more...]