Mortgage Rates Top 4% in Test for Housing

Mortgage rates extended above the 4% threshold last week in concert with an increase in the yield on on the 10 year treasury.  Investors are demanding high yields on the 10 year treasury as they anticipate an increase in the Federal Funds rate.  Time will tell what impact these higher mortgage rates will have on  Read more ➝

College Graduation. A Time For Optimism.

I recently attended my daughter’s college graduation ceremony and can say, if you are ever feeling down and blue about the future, swing by a college commencement ceremony.  The graduates’ accomplishments and speeches are so uplifting, they will surely recalibrate your optimism. And why shouldn’t they be optimistic.  For them, the consequences of failure are  Read more ➝

Home Sales On The Rise

Share prices of Home Builder KB Homes soared 8% after a better than expected earnings report.  Chief Executive Jeffrey Mezger said there was more demand from would-be home buyers in the first quarter than a year earlier. The company sold nearly 20% more homes in California last quarter, at an average price of $550,600 —  Read more ➝

Now may be the time to rethink international allocations

  Deutsche Bank’s Foreign Exchange (FX) team forecasts that the U.S. dollar will continue to appreciate against other major currencies through 2017. As this occurs, U.S. investors with international allocations may continue to see their returns eroded by the currency effect. In their white paper on the subject, they make a strong case for a long term cyclical  Read more ➝

7 Reasons Oil Prices Will Continue to Tumble

As reported by Oxford World Financial Digest: Fortune magazine has run an engaging and enlightening article, written by market analysts, which argues that there are seven signs why oil prices will continue to drop. The first reason is that the world is flooded with oil. US production is near a thirty-two year high at near  Read more ➝

Netanyahu’s Speech Before Congress

Regardless of your political stripes, this is a speech is worth watching.  It lays out the current state of affairs in the the Middle East in all its complexity and describes the risk of not getting the policies right in the region. As much as many of us in the US would like to divorce  Read more ➝

The American Economy Is On A Roll

America’s economy is on a roll.  Don’t believe me, take a moment to read the Roar Eagle Roar issue of Bloomberg, including the article, America The Relatively Beautiful  CLICK HERE. Among other things the article states, “The U.S. economy has generated jobs at a pace of a quarter million per month over the past year”,  Read more ➝

Fed Considers Rate Hike, Minutes Show

Minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve Open Market committee meeting indicate that  policymakers are optimistic about the economy but are concerned about a premature departure from their accommodative  monetary out of fear that doing so might stifle the economy’s current growth trajectory.  With regard to monetary policy their minutes state, “In their discussion of  Read more ➝