My Mind on Mortgages

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. With most financial markets closed in Europe for May Day interest rates here in the US are taking direction from the domestic stock market this morning. US stocks are trading higher on a better than expected purchase managers reading from the Institute for Supply Management.  When stocks move higher it [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. It’s a new week but the theme is unchanged.  The domestic economy continues to show signs of weakness and concern over Spain is ongoing.  However, interest rates cannot seem to move any lower. The Commerce Department released figures this morning showing that US incomes grew by slightly more than was [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. Since the European debt crisis remains front and center for the financial markets we’ll start there. Spain announced today that their unemployment rate rose to the highest level in 18 years at 24.4%.  For workers under the age of 24 the unemployment rate is approximately 50%.  Spain’s economy is not [...]

Mortgage rates are priced slightly better today. In yesterday’s ‘rate update’ I laid out my prediction for how the Fed’s monetary policy statement would ready and how it would impact mortgage rates.  I got half of my prediction right.  The Fed DID NOT indicate that any further quantitative easing was imminent BUT this DID NOT [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. It’s a very busy day in the interest rate markets with attention squarely focused on the Fed.  The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) wraps up its regularly scheduled 2-day monetary policy meeting today and will issue its policy statement at 12:30 EST. If you’ll remember back to the last FOMC [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands were all able to successfully sell government debt at regularly scheduled bond auctions earlier today (click HERE to understand why the Netherlands is all of a sudden important).  Had demand for their auctions been week it would have stoked concern and likely helped US interest [...]

Mortgage rates are priced better today. Holland and Hollande are driving interest rates thus far today. As I wrote about in last Thursday’s ‘rate update’ the French presidential elections took place over the weekend and the challenger, Francoise Hollande, from the Socialist Party performed well.  He is attracting support from French voters because he believes [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. Interest rates have held steady, just above all-time low levels, for the past couple weeks now.  The WSJ published this quote from a trader this morning which sums up the current state of the interest rate markets, “We are at yield levels that require a constant flow of fear to [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. I bet you’ve been wondering how this weekend’s presidential primary election in France will impact mortgage rates here in the US.  OK, maybe not but I’m going to tell you anyways. As we’re seeing with Spain & Italy debt problems can spread quickly as investors get nervous about austerity cuts [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged today. Uncertainty persists in Europe which is why mortgage rates have retreated back near all-time lows over the past 10 days. Earlier today the Italian Government announced that it was cutting its economic growth & fiscal forecasts and warned that they would not be able to balance their budget in 2013 [...]