From the monthly archives:
February existing home sales figures were released earlier today. Here’s what the numbers showed:
* Existing home sales rose 5.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million units from 4.49 million in January. That was better than the forecast for a reading of 4.45 million. Single-family sales climbed 4.4%, while condo and cooperative sales [...]
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We’ve been waiting for weeks for the details of the government’s plan to buy up toxic assets from banks. Today, those details are being released. The plan is designed to deal with both legacy whole loans and legacy securities, using a combination of Treasury capital, private capital, and debt financing backed by an FDIC guarantee. [...]
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I took some time out this morning to do a Fox Business spot on the latest Fed move and what it means for mortgage rates. If you have time, you can check that out below:
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It’s hard to characterize just how nasty the action in the currency market is here. The Dollar Index got clubbed to the tune of 2.69% yesterday in the wake of the Fed’s monetization move. That is one of the biggest declines ever (the move against the euro was the worst since 2000). DXY is down [...]
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The latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee just wrapped up. Policymakers maintained the official target for the federal funds rate at a range of 0% to 0.25%, as expected. But that’s not the big deal here. The big deal is that the Fed is now going to monetize the U.S. debt by committing [...]
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Well that certainly was an interesting number — housing starts surged in February. More details …
* Total housing starts surged 22.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000, up from 477,000 in January. Building permits rose 3% to 547,000 from 531,000. Economists were expecting 450,000 starts and 500,000 permits.
* By property type, single family [...]
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Every quarter, the Federal Reserve releases its Flow of Funds report. This always makes for good reading if you’re a numbers/economic wonk. But it’s especially important now because it tells us a great deal about the depth and breadth of the economic downturn.
For starters, the report showed household wealth plunged $5.1 trillion between Q3 and [...]
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There was a good story in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the return of widespread credit fears. Its piece focuses on action in the corporate bond market. But several of my indicators are also suggesting that the market is really getting spooked again.
The dollar index is ripping again, for instance, a sign that [...]
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The big February jobs report was just released. The numbers were grim, but largely in line with the market’s dismal expectations. Here’s a recap …
* The economy shed 651,000 jobs in February. That compared to an upwardly revised 655,000 in January (previous number: 598,000). December’s initial reading of 577,000 was also revised sharply higher to [...]
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I keep reading about how the problem with the banking system isn’t all the crappy securities and loans it’s loaded up with. It’s not that they took on too much excessive risk, lending against assets whose value is plunging. It’s not that they funded asinine private equity deals, stupid commercial construction deals, and dumb home [...]
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