From the monthly archives:
The Treasury bond market continues to collapse under its own weight. The long bond futures are down ANOTHER 28/32 as I write, extending recent losses to around 15 points in price. In fact, this month is shaping up to be the worst month for the Treasury market going all the way back to April 2004, [...]
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Just a quick note: I’m scheduled to do a segment on CNBC at 3:40 p.m. Eastern this afternoon. I’ll be discussing the latest housing figures. Check it out if you get a chance.
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The latest economic news continues to disappoint, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. Durable goods orders for December dropped 2.6%, worse than expectations for a decline of 2%. Excluding transportation orders, durables were down 3.6% against a -2.7% forecast.
On the employment front, initial jobless claims rose to 588,000 from a revised 585,000 (forecast was for [...]
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The Federal Reserve just released its latest statement. The message in a nutshell: Rates will stay low for a long time and we’ll buy anything and everything to keep credit costs low:
“The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent. The Committee [...]
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The banking stocks recently suffered another mini-crash. So it’s no surprise Washington is responding with yet another “solution” to the crisis. Every few months, this happens. Some bank, broker, or subsector of the credit market blows up … policymakers try to think up a solution … that solution gets leaked to the press ahead of [...]
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The latest figures from S&P/Case-Shiller have just been released. The research group says home prices dropped 2.23% between October and November in 20 top U.S. metropolitan areas. That was a slight increase from the 2.18% drop a month earlier.
On a year-over-year basis, prices fell 18.2% in November, compared with an 18.1% decline in October. The [...]
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The Treasury just sold $8 billion of 20-year TIPS at what looks like a stinko auction. The notes were sold at a yield of 2.5% versus pre-auction talk for a yield of 2.37% (per Bloomberg). The bid-to-cover ratio came in at 1.92, compared with an average of 1.98 for the past five sales. Indirect bidders [...]
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It’s another ugly Monday morning on the news front, especially as it relates to jobs. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar (CAT: 57.95 -0.66 -1.13%) says it will slash 20,000 jobs due to slumping demand for construction gear (It had 113,000 workers at the end of 2008). Wireless company Sprint Nextel is also chopping 8,000 of its [...]
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I’ve been hammering home a clear point for several weeks and months – there is no such thing as a “free lunch.” You can’t simply bail out anyone and everyone, especially when you’re a debtor nation, and expect your creditors to just grin and bear it forever. Click here for more of my views on this topic.
Now [...]
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RealtyTrac just released its year-end foreclosure figures for 2008. Total filings climbed 81% to a record 2.33 million (though in fairness, the firm has only been tracking the numbers for four years). The company estimates that 1 in 54 U.S. housing units, or 1.84%, were involved in some sort of foreclosure filing (notice of default, [...]
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