Succinct summation of week’s events:
Positives:
1) Following another sharp rally in US Treasuries and the FOMC announcement of buying more MBS, Bankrate.com says the avg 30 yr mortgage rate falls 18 bps on the week to 4.0% but will it matter? Likely only for refi’s
2) Aug Existing Home Sales at 5.03mm annualized were 280k more than expected, in part due to closings that were delayed in prior months
3) Housing start permits rise in both single family and multi, single family we don’t need more, multi we do
4) German ZEW investor confidence in their economy falls to lowest since ’98 but was a bit better than feared.
Negatives:
1) Confusion reigns with what happens next for Greece, and thus with the rest of the region
2) Italy gets unexpected credit downgrade from S&P
3) Euro basis swap reverses late last week’s fall after ECB/central bank swap line move
4) Euro zone mfr’g and services composite index falls to lowest since July ’09
5) FOMC continues its almost religious mission of suppressing the cost of money, still hoping for a different result. Albert Einstein is smiling
6) China’s preliminary HSBC mfr’g index fell to 49.4 from 49.9
7) Initial Jobless Claims totaled 423k, 3k more than expected and prior week revised up by 4k
8) MBA said refi’s rose just 2.2% while purchases fell to 7 month low.
What's been said:
Discussions found on the web: