From the monthly archives:
It’s been a
busy day on the data front. Here’s the scoop on today’s batch of news …
* Q1 GDP managed to come in positive – +0.6%
vs. expectations for +0.5% and a Q4 reading of 0.6%. Personal consumption was a bit stronger than expected, at 1% vs. a
Bloomberg forecast of 0.7%. But that was still the
smallest rise [...]
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Every quarter, the Census Bureau releases a broad snapshot of the U.S. housing industry
– specifically, it tallies up the U.S. homeownership
rate and the U.S. vacancy rate (what percentage of U.S. homes are sitting empty). The latest figures for Q1 2008 show:
* The homeowner vacancy rate rose
to 2.9% from 2.8% in both Q4 2007 and Q1 2007. [...]
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Sorry for the lack of posts today — been pretty busy. One thing that I couldn’t help comment on, however: Have you
noticed that mortgage rates have been ticking higher lately? And that this has had an impact on purchase
applications?
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly purchase application index dropped 6.4% to 357.30 in the week of April [...]
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Punch up a crude oil futures quote, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s what you would have seen a few moments ago for the
price of a barrel of black gold. Even the “see no
inflation, hear no inflation” Federal Reserve crowd
can’t seem to ignore this market action any more. Bloomberg just ran with a story called “Fisher [...]
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The latest National Association of Home Builders survey was just released. The data for April showed …
* The overall index held steady at 20, the same as in March and February
* The sub-index measuring current home sales dropped 2 points to 18, the lowest since November. However, the sub-index
measuring expectations about future sales rose 4 [...]
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I never understood why Wachovia bought California-based Golden West Financial after the housing market was already showing signs of topping out. Golden
West’s star product is the option ARM, or “pick a payment” mortgage. A large percentage of those loans were made in
California, one of the states with the most bubbleicious housing markets. But acquire GDW [...]
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Look, there’s no way to sugarcoat the import price figures that were released today. They stunk to high heaven. Some
details:
* Overall import prices surged 2.8% in March, well above the 2% rise that was expected. If you strip out
petroleum, you still get a very large 1.1% rise. Strip out all fuels? Prices were up 0.9%, the [...]
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