From the monthly archives:
Yesterday’s record 2-year Treasury Note auction went off fairly well. Today’s 5-year auction? Not so much. The Treasury tried to sell a record $39 billion of notes. Pre-auction talk was for the notes to sell at a yield of 2.635%. Instead, they went off at 2.689%, more than 5 basis points higher. The bid-to-cover ratio [...]
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Lots to cover this morning, so I’ll try to be brief …
First, China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropped 5% overnight, the biggest decline in eight months. That may not sound like much because the darn thing has soared 79% so far this year. But the reason for it is worth noting: The government appears to be [...]
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The latest home price figures from S&P/Case-Shiller just hit the tape. They showed a 17.1% year-over-year decline in the 20 cities tracked by the research group. That was smaller than the 17.9% forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg. It was also down from 18.1% a month earlier.
On a month-over-month basis, prices rose 0.45%, the first [...]
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June new home sales figures were released this morning. Here’s a recap of what they showed:
* New home sales surged 11% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000 from 346,000 in May. That was stronger than the average forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg, who were expecting 352,000 sales. Regionally, sales rose 22.6% in [...]
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The housing market data has taken on an improving tone of late. The June existing home sales report was no exception. Let’s get to the details …
* Existing home sales gained 3.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units from a downwardly revised 4.72 million in May. That was roughly in line [...]
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Interesting timing, to say the least. As “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke heads to the Hill for a couple days of grilling, the Wall Street Journal is publishing an op-ed from the Fed Chairman about “exit strategies.” Bernanke tries to lay out the case that the Fed will pull back on all its extraordinary accommodation when and [...]
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The latest figures on home construction just hit the tape. Here’s a rundown …
* Total housing starts came in at 582,000 in June, up 3.6% from an upwardly revised 562,000 in May. Permitting activity also climbed — 8.7% to 563,000 from 518,000 a month earlier. Starts haven’t been higher than this since November..
* By property [...]
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I feel like it’s Thanksgiving afternoon, with a feast of stories to chew on today. In no particular order …
* The government is finally going to allow one of these ne’er-do-well financial firms fail, apparently. I’m talking about CIT Group, the commercial lender that’s been struggling for months. Apparently, the Treasury, Federal Reserve and especially [...]
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Hope everyone is having a decent Monday. One item that’s worth noting this afternoon is the latest budget update from the U.S. Treasury. Turns out the June deficit came in at $94.3 billion, the first time there’s been a deficit for that month since 1991. It’s also the largest June deficit ever. The year-to-date tally [...]
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I said back when the Obama administration’s mortgage modification programs were being rolled out that they would likely NOT meet the ambitious expectations spelled out by policymakers. There are several reasons why mortgage servicers and investors are not as willing (or able) to modify loans as aggressively as the politicians want them to. A great [...]
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