Good Morning All-
I think it is
appropriate to say, How Low Will Rate's Go?
Honestly, probably
not much lower. So what is going on right now and why are the rates so low?
When the Fed rolled
out QE3 (Quantitative Easing 3) there number one goal was to purchase 60
billion a month in Mortgage Bonds to help push rates lower and lower. Basically
look at it from sheer supply and demand. What happened in 2005 with the housing
market? The more demand there was for houses, the higher the prices went. Right
now the only demand is the Fed. They are the one's pushing prices higher and
higher, thus pushing yields (rates) lower and lower. What's going to happen
though? Like the housing market, many of us have learned over the past 7 years.
If the price is right...many of us would sell in a heartbeat. When prices get
high enough on these Mortgage Bonds, you will see many of the pension funds,
bond funds (who normally buy mortgage bonds), etc, unload their mortgage bonds
that they bought months ago for a nice profit. These funds know that the Fed is
the buyer. So what you will see is it will get harder and harder for rates to
move lower. If it is not worth it for these funds to buy mortgage bonds, then
the only buyer left is the Fed. Look at it from your point of view. Would you
buy a 30 year Bond for 3% return on your money?
What we have in our
favor though that might help keep rates low and keep these Funds buying
mortgage bonds along with the Fed is Europe, especially Spain. Spain's 10 year
T-Bill is hovering around 6.75%. Our 10 year is around 1.60%. Spain has around
25% unemployment in some areas, and is on the verge of falling off the fiscal
cliff. So as long as Europe is having these issues (and they will for years to
come) it will keep investors jittery about the all around health of the economy
thus keeping money in the bond market and rates should stay low.
We had some economic
data that came out yesterday. We had new home sales released for August.
Estimates were 380k and the actual number came in at 373K. This number is a
little lack luster.
We just had some new
economic data come out. First we had the Initial Jobless Claims. These are
people receiving first time unemployment benefits. Estimates were 380K and the
actual number is 359K. For us to really start having a better jobs situation we
really need to bring this number down to around 325K.
Next we had the
durable goods order. Durable good orders estimates were -5.1% and the actual
number was -13.2%. This terrible number was attributed to a lousy month in Auto
sales and Boeing Airplanes. Boeing had orders to build 100 planes last month,
but it was cancelled to just 1 plane order. Also Defense spending was down 40%
last month as well as the Afghanistan war is starting wind down. That had a
huge effect on this durable goods number.
Lastly, we had the
final reading for quarter 2 GDP (gross domestic product). The estimates were
1.7% and the actual reading came in at 1.3%. This means that our economy is not
growing. We need around 2.5% to 3.0% on average to stimulate growth.
So what to take away
is that all this economic news is lousy. Even with all this bad news, rates
will open up worse today due to profit taking of bond funds and people
capitalizing on the recent huge run up we have had in rates. As long as the
economic data stays like this, rates are not going to shoot up. We will see
volatility though and it will be harder and harder for the Fed's to keep rates
low.
As I finish up...this
just in, The US postal service is expected to default on a 5.6 billion payment
that is due this weekend for retirees, and employee costs. The average loss for
the post office is 25 million a day. What a great business model. So expect
stamps to be going up very soon.
Be aware of your
market, educate your clients and let's close some deals.
Josh
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Market Update 9-7-12
Good Morning All-
We had some major economic news come out in the past 2 days. A lot of job information was released and as you know jobs is the number one thing that everyone is talking about.
Yesterday, we had the ADP Private employment report. For those of you who do not know what ADP is, look as some of the paystubs your clients have. Odds are in the upper right hand corner it says "ADP." This is a corporation who handles payroll checks for thousands of companies. So a few years back, they came up with the ADP employment report and who better to report employment than the company that handles most of our checks.
Remember when numbers come out the market has an estimate, and based on were the actual number comes in, we get movement. Now ADP only measures private employment and they also do not account for all jobs out there. The market estimated that there were 143,000 jobs created. The actual ADP report came in at about 201,000 jobs. The markets loved this move. That is why we saw the DOW gain almost 250 points yesterday. Our mortgage bonds (what our rates are based off of) lost almost 50 basis points. In our world that is .375 price or maybe .125% in rate. Our rate sheets reflected about that.
Today is known as Jobs Friday. The first Friday of every month reports major economic jobs data. It's like the Superbowl for finance every month. Once a month we have the government jobs number come out which takes all jobs both public and private into it's readings except farm jobs. In the height of the crisis this number was negative. We were shedding about 700K a month for a few months. Over the year and a half, this number has begun to move positive.
Today we had the Jobs Number (also known as the Non Farm Payrolls) come out. The market estimated 130K new jobs were created and in actuality there was only 90K in new jobs created. Now in itself that does not seem awful, but we really need around 175K in new jobs being created to grow. Plus the previous month's number was revised down. Last month the government released info that stated that 163K new jobs were created and now they lowered that number by 23K. So that made the jobs outlook even poorer.
Next we had the Unemployment Rate come out. The market estimated 8.3% unemployed, and the actual number came in at 8.1%. So how did the rate go down, when the jobs number was terrible? Easy, people stopped looking for a job, thus fell out of the survey, or many of the seasonal jobs (our college kids) left their jobs and went back to school. They are technically not unemployed as school is considered employment.
So with this huge amount of info, stocks went from positive to negative and our mortgage bonds went from -30bps this morning to +70bps. That is a 100 basis point move. Our rates should open up about .125% to a .250% in rate today.
It is never a good idea to gamble on a day like today but let's all use this much better pricing going into the weekend so we can procure more business. Putting all the hardships we endure on a daily basis aside, rates will improve on our rate sheets today.
Educate your clients, be aware of the market, and let's close some deals.
Josh
We had some major economic news come out in the past 2 days. A lot of job information was released and as you know jobs is the number one thing that everyone is talking about.
Yesterday, we had the ADP Private employment report. For those of you who do not know what ADP is, look as some of the paystubs your clients have. Odds are in the upper right hand corner it says "ADP." This is a corporation who handles payroll checks for thousands of companies. So a few years back, they came up with the ADP employment report and who better to report employment than the company that handles most of our checks.
Remember when numbers come out the market has an estimate, and based on were the actual number comes in, we get movement. Now ADP only measures private employment and they also do not account for all jobs out there. The market estimated that there were 143,000 jobs created. The actual ADP report came in at about 201,000 jobs. The markets loved this move. That is why we saw the DOW gain almost 250 points yesterday. Our mortgage bonds (what our rates are based off of) lost almost 50 basis points. In our world that is .375 price or maybe .125% in rate. Our rate sheets reflected about that.
Today is known as Jobs Friday. The first Friday of every month reports major economic jobs data. It's like the Superbowl for finance every month. Once a month we have the government jobs number come out which takes all jobs both public and private into it's readings except farm jobs. In the height of the crisis this number was negative. We were shedding about 700K a month for a few months. Over the year and a half, this number has begun to move positive.
Today we had the Jobs Number (also known as the Non Farm Payrolls) come out. The market estimated 130K new jobs were created and in actuality there was only 90K in new jobs created. Now in itself that does not seem awful, but we really need around 175K in new jobs being created to grow. Plus the previous month's number was revised down. Last month the government released info that stated that 163K new jobs were created and now they lowered that number by 23K. So that made the jobs outlook even poorer.
Next we had the Unemployment Rate come out. The market estimated 8.3% unemployed, and the actual number came in at 8.1%. So how did the rate go down, when the jobs number was terrible? Easy, people stopped looking for a job, thus fell out of the survey, or many of the seasonal jobs (our college kids) left their jobs and went back to school. They are technically not unemployed as school is considered employment.
So with this huge amount of info, stocks went from positive to negative and our mortgage bonds went from -30bps this morning to +70bps. That is a 100 basis point move. Our rates should open up about .125% to a .250% in rate today.
It is never a good idea to gamble on a day like today but let's all use this much better pricing going into the weekend so we can procure more business. Putting all the hardships we endure on a daily basis aside, rates will improve on our rate sheets today.
Educate your clients, be aware of the market, and let's close some deals.
Josh
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