Now that the extended first time home buyer credit is history, so is whatever impact it once had on home sales. The good news is that data indicates the extended program had only a modest impact, especially compared to the original incentive; this however is also the bad news. A recent, albeit modest, jump in home sales […]
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Europe’s rapidly escalating out-of-control debt crisis has brought about a rare occurrence, solidarity amongst its members; an elusive attribute in the European experiment. Eurozone members, who have worked tirelessly over the weekend, appear to have agreed on creating a $645bn loan package to help defend its currency and stymie fears of Greek contagion to other […]
Fear is beginning to seep into the European financial system with LIBOR rates edging up; leading to a sharp rise in the three month TED Spread (tracking 3M LIBOR against 3M US Treasuries). While nowhere near its crisis high of over 450bps, the TED Spread has enlarged to 32bps from just 19bps on May 3rd. […]
As tomorrow morning’s employment report approaches I wanted to take a quick look at the relationship between the four week moving average of initial jobless claims and the change in payrolls. As a general rule of thumb significant sustained job growth cannot occur until claims move below 400K. However, in March payrolls grew at 162K, […]
I lost my wallet on 2nd ave between 51st and 53rd on the evening of 4/27 in NY. If anyone has found it I will be extremely grateful if we can be reunited. Please shoot me an email at mikemcd18@gmail.com. Thanks! -Michael McDonough
As expected mortgage rates have begun to climb. On March 31st, as planned the Fed terminated its mortgage backed securities (MBS) purchase program after buying $1.25trn of the instruments–keeping mortgage rates artificially low. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the average rate for a 30Y mortgage already climbed to 5.31% the week ending 4/2, compared to […]
As a fan of beer, technology, and business I may have stumbled upon the perfect article this morning on Bloomberg to write a quick weekend note. Apparently, a nuclear scientist–who looks like he would feel quite at home in any brewery–crafted a beer mug designed with the same technology used to store liquid nitrogen. The […]
Payrolls moved up by +162K in March, compared to a forecast of +184K. Combined January and February revisions totaled an additional 40K jobs created. March added 48K census workers making the ex-census change in payrolls a modestly strong +136K. It is impossible to determine to what extent weather had on this report, but I expect […]
The table below outlines the credit ratings for US states along with individual and coporate income taxes for each state:
What a day, I wake up to the news that Fitch has downgraded Portugal, leading to a strong sell-off in Euro–reaching a ten month low against the dollar. This news was not tremendously surprising, and I expect the situation in Europe will get far worse before getting better, especially if Greece doesn’t find a funding […]