Danny Johnson
Long-term rates continue falling as mortgages stay just above 4%
The big story of last week is the odd combination of saber-rattling by the Fed but falling long-term interest rates, mortgages just above 4.00%. First a rundown on other matters high in the news but ho-hummed in markets. Iraq has gone off-screen entirely, oil prices right back where they were ...
Too much good news causes long-term rates to rise
Long-term rates rose last week. In our perverse world, the cause was too much good news. As always, rate-watching is a probability business, surprise the only constant. Odds have shifted from the May-June flirtation with lower rates toward a test of the highs of this year. But the good news ...
Why home price gains have flattened and what investors need to know
Long-term rates have fallen back near the lows of the year, despite Wall Street salespeople trying to frighten investors about inflation and Fed tightening. That extraction of funding from crowds is indefensible, but our situation is confusing. Example: we would like to unseat Assad in Syria, and we wish bad ...
Inflation up but rates holding steady
There are times to suspend analysis and just listen to markets. Have to be careful even with that. First, pick the right markets. The stock market is not worth the trouble, thousands of different stocks at once sounding like a symphony performed by 5th-graders. Pick bullet markets: the 10-year US ...
Overall interest rates will stay low with small bumps here and there
Markets have paused, warily studying new plumes of smoke on the horizon. Not enough hazard to run to Treasurys or to scramble for oil, but not business as usual. Bergdahl, Brat, Baghdad, and Barakā¦ but the important happening was Uber. US data do not support the acceleration camp: May retail ...
We are gradually creeping ahead, interest rates still low, but recovery very, very slow
"Silly season" for newsies is high summer, when there so little news that "Man Bites Dog!" migrates to page one. In this late-spring week news is plentiful, but a lot of it is silly. Keep sense of humor close by. The straight news aspects for real estate investors are brief, ...
Good news for investors: Long-term interest rates may fall a long way
Many threads, much confusion. Most important for investors, a simultaneous event and indicator: the 10-year T-note broke below 2.47%, mortgages to low-fours. The chart could not be more dramatic; if not a temporary head-fake, long-term rates can fall a long way. We will know next week real estate investors. Next ...
How do we find our way back to economic progress and growing investments?
A holiday week, thin for new economic reports, markets quiet... one subject rises in importance above all for investors. Politics!! We are in a political transition unprecedented in our national history. From the Civil War until recently our two political parties were ideologically mixed. Republicans were the Party of Lincoln, ...
Mel Watt is focused on helping the mortgage credit situation
Big changes this week, surprising and confusing -- mostly good news here, trouble overseas, and an astounding political turn for the better for mortgage credit. On Wednesday the 10-year T-note broke out the bottom of a well-defined four-month trading range 2.60%-2.80% to 2.50%. That's the lowest since last November, and ...
Interest rates could come down if the economy does not accelerate
Bond and mortgage yields have frozen. The 10-year Treasury note in the last three months traded in a slushy harbor 2.60%-2.80%, but you could skate on this week's 2.58%-2.63%. When a glacier like this breaks up, expect the shattering onset of true up-down volatility and change in trend. No, I ...
Lou Barnes weekly financial review for investors: jobs up, yields down and more
A bizarre sequence of events and data has taken bond and mortgage yields to their lows of the year, the 10-year T-note 2.58% and mortgages near 4.50%. Ukraine is the largest immediate force pushing down on rates, but we'll review that after trying to make sense of the most contradictory ...
Here is the real story: Can we have an economic recovery without housing?
New data has pushed housing to the forefront of the recovery discussion. Can the economy recover without housing? What has gone wrong with it? If housing is de-emphasized as never since the Depression, what does it mean for inequality, the new darling of the Left, and the free-market pleasure of ...
Lou Barnes weekly: Housing is close to stalling and the setup is for higher interest rates
Events this week could be mistaken for a cartoon if not so serious. And the cartoonish aspect magnified by clowns squirting lapel flowers in your eye every time something starts to make sense. The setup this week was for higher interest rates. This was an "auction week" for the Treasury, ...
Lou Barnes weekly roundup for investors on jobs, stocks and the Fed
To the silent consternation of the markets, the March payrolls report arrived exactly as expected, a gain of 192,000. Zounds. Since this report has never before come in as forecast, no one knows what to make of it. On our son's third birthday, the young man held court in his ...
Lou Barnes weekly investor review: Russian crisis sends more investor money here
The action has been overseas this past week, with little new economic data, all forces -- anxiety, mostly -- pushing long-term rates lower. Domestic information was on the weak side of hopes. Orders for durable goods, net of volatile items crept up 0.2% in February. Pending sales of homes continued ...
Lou Barnes’ financial weekly perspectives for investors
We interrupt coverage of Flight 370 for brief news from the worldā¦. Interest rates rose this week on receding worry about Ukraine, and in the aftermath of the first Fed meeting with Janet Yellen in the chair, including her first public mistake (may as well get it over with). Two ...
Lou Barnes on Russia, Fannie and Freddie impact on investors
Watching markets this past week has been surreal. On the surface the usual tub-thumpers were at it: economy picking up, Fed's going to tighten, stocks to infinity and beyond, and well-dressed technology drunks in every upscale gutter. The ordinary media is completely preoccupied with an airliner seized by aliens. Get ...
I do not believe the jobs numbers and neither do the markets, here’s why
The first week of each month brings a blizzard of fresh data from the month immediately prior, and an even more blinding wave of contradictory analysis. Except when the data reveal a big change in trend, the best way to evaluate the load: try to bracket the edges of the ...
A window into how the Fed operated in the 2008 all-time most-dangerous banking wreck
The big news this week is an astounding historical revelation useful in the present, but before that a few current events. In Congressional testimony Chair Yellen acknowledged weakness in new economic data, but confirmed a continuing quantitative easing taper. Even Congressmen know to be delicate in debate with babes, and ...
For investors rates continue stable, but concerns overseas
Here in the U.S. market participants are fidgeting and annoyed by the weather distortion of incoming data. Three housing reports of January-February activity were of course weak, but meaningless, the same for snapshots of manufacturing activity in New York and Philly-Fed. The longer we go without good information, the larger ...
Fed flying blind, is a surprise coming?
A rational week. What a relief. The steep drops in interest rates and stocks stopped just where charts said they should, and both rebounded in predictable perfection, now dead neutral. U.S. snowboarders should land so well. Janet Yellen gave her first formal testimony as Fedā¦ Chairman? Chairwoman? Chairperson? Madame Chairman? ...
Lou Barnes helps investors make sense of the latest jobs report
On the first Friday every month: payroll roulette. No data is more important to the Fed and interest rates because jobs and incomes are so central to inflation prospects. But no report is so wildly, comically inaccurate. Today's factoid: a January payroll gain only about half the up-side guesses, 113,000 ...
Is the currency crisis an advantage to U.S. investors?
By Louis S. Barnes Three weeks ago, surprise market movements embarrassed New Year's prognosticators. By last week the moves were big enough to attract a few bottom-fishers, others too queasy. At the end of this week, the defensive huffing, "Just a correction" sounds like Monty Python's amputated knight, "Just a ...
Why are rates dropping? Look to China, currencies and low inflation
By Louis S. Barnes Most year-end forecasts are now on hold, or ought to be. Expectations for a faster economy and higher rates? Later, dear. Some days the financial markets are beautiful things. Not just because you're winning a bet, but by clarifying who has done what to whom. Not ...
Mortgage delinquency too low! What?
By Louis S. Barnes Two things this week: the aftershocks of last week's jobs surprise, and astounding word that delinquencies on new mortgages are too low. The weak jobs report knocked down long-term rates, and although everyone is suspicious of the report, the improvement has held. The all-defining 10-year T-note ...
