Happy Friday Investors

A rather subdued day at the ‘Wall’. As I write this, stocks on the big board are up 15 ticks with the NAZ up 16. Bonds are up as well, about 6/32. Could have been worse, but the eco news came in pretty close to the consensus. So the job market is starting to slowly, but surely grind forward, which is welcome news for Big Ben at the FED. Next week is the Fed Open Market Committee meeting and more than likely in light of unemployment at it’s lowest level in 3 years at 8.3, and the slow steady growth over the past several months, and payrolls up slightly, it is unlikely that they will decide to launch any resemblance of QE III.

Greece averted total financial ruin, just barely, which of course is eco positive, through the help of private investors. However, how long this will last is anyone’s guess. But for now they are still a part of the European union.

The above will likely cause mortgage rates to creep up slightly, though I don’t see anything major happening yet. Speaking of mortgage rates, let’s get to the rate report, before people start their ‘Spring Break’ early today:

Leveraging 80% on a SFR Investment property will give you an interest rate of: 5.125%

Leveraging 75% on a 2-4 Investment property will give you an interest rate of: 4.875%

Have a safe, enjoyable weekend, and if you are taking a Spring Break, enjoy it so you can hit it hard when you get back!

Happy Friday all . . .

As I have a quick break in the action here, I wanted to update you all with a quick yet informative update. OK, today’s news; new home sales (SFR-Single-Family Residences), fell .9%, however, the previous months revision upward, painted a picture that could appear to many economists that the slumping housing market may have found a bottom. The supply of new homes available for sale, slid to a record low of $151,000 — or 5.6% — the lowest amount of inventory since 2006!

This is promising for the economy. While this is encouraging news, the pace of new home sales is still extremely sluggish. Don’t think of this as bad news, think of it as good news as far as mortgage rates are concerned, because this will help to support the low level of mortgage rates. Sluggish economy equals low rates. [Read more...]

Happy Saturday Investors, have a quick update to keep you up to speed on where we are.

Bonds

This week, bonds took a bit of a beating, largely due to events overseas, and even internal info coming out of the economic sector back here in the States. First off, Greece is adamant about their claims of having reached an agreement with the Euro Nations on their ‘bailout’. It appears that this agreement should be in place by the end of the day, Monday the 20th. While I’m still skeptical, it appears that this might actually happen this time — no, really. If that’s the case, expect a little flurry of investors to start investing some capital into stocks, and thus liquidating some of their safer assets like bonds and mortgage backed securities. This could put a little pressure on the price of bonds and thus raise rates slightly. [Read more...]

Happy Friday to my investor friends out there. A rather tame day here in the States, but what is grabbing the headlines is something that took the headlines yesterday as well. I knew better than to freak out when I heard that the European Union and Greece had come to an agreement and a plan to help bail out Greece and prevent a complete default. We have heard this before. Do you smell what I smell? I smell what makes our lawns greener more quickly. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought this. Germany, for example, said, “Oh yeah? Then let’s put the austerity measures into law.” In other words, put your money where your mouth is. Guess what? We’re right back where we started; nowhere faster than you can say default. They don’t want a ‘virtual agreement’ or a ‘hand shake agreement”, they want it backed up. Can’t say I blame Germany or any of the other European powers because let’s not forget that in April, the Greeks have an election, and if the new politicians don’t back up what’s agreed upon in principal now, Europe just threw a lot of money right out the window. [Read more...]

Happy Friday to all investors out there. Sorry for the delayed post. Many of you may be out there ‘marinating’ your ice cubes, and wish I was too, but first things first. Some of you may be wondering what happened today. We have had a pretty good week, although stagnant. Mortgage backed securities remained low all week, even through Big Ben’s stern words to Congress to get their act together, etc. But today’s all important non-farms report had some big surprises. The first was 243,000 more jobs were created, than lost for last month, surprising because most experts were ready to see 150,000. Also, the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 to 8.3%. Now these numbers still aren’t all that fantastic, but, consider this; we haven’t seen jobs created at this level since February 2009! Also, since August of 2011, we have seen the unemployment number drop .8% over the past 6-7 months. So it seem that the economy is showing signs of life, not huge gains, but enough to make investors flee the safe havens of bonds and MBS for stocks over at the ‘Wall’.

BawldGuy Here: A factoid we shouldn’t ignore is that in this report, about 1.2 million Americans gave up lookin’ for work, and therefore, weren’t including in the stats. That tends to skew the numbers. Geez, ya think?

This is an important time to keep an eye on stocks and just overall activity on Wall Street as yes, the economy is showing signs of life, but look out for the follow up to a 1-2 punch; they are still trying to work out a deal over in Greece to prevent a complete default. I no longer thing it is possible, it is probably quite probable. Inevitably they will strike a deal to bail out Greece and when they do, it will be another shot in the arm for the stock market. [Read more...]