For information on highlighted terms in the commentary, click here. Stocks are back in negative territory after weak economic news in unemployment and manufacturing. After this mornings jobless claims report jumped up, we now have close to 10 million unemployed workers in the country. Also, a regional report from the Philadelphia Fed showed that manufacturing [...]

For information on highlighted terms in the commentary, click here. MBS lost steam on Friday and dropped again yesterday, ending an impressive run of gains. Today, the market is flat and there is not much action in stocks either. There is no major news, economic or legislative, due out so we expect a calm day. [...]

“Jobs are the only tonic to calm a skittish national mind-set,” stated “the pace of economic recovery is likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated.” The central bank said it will buy U.S. Treasuries with proceeds from mortgage holdings to keep money and credit flowing for a recovery. Initial [...]

Since the end of the Great Depression, home ownership has been subsidized and encouraged by the federal government. The debate on the future of this effort begins on Tuesday when the Obama administration convenes the conference on the U.S. housing finance system. The conversation will center on what to do with mortgage giants Fannie Mae [...]

For information on highlighted terms in the commentary, click here. Today’s news could be titled “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”. The part of Oliver Hardy will be played by investors and the part of Stan Laurel will be played by the Federal Government. Yesterday’s Fed statement has put the markets back into [...]

“We were hoping for good news, and we just didn’t get it,”

For information on highlighted terms in the commentary, click here. Stocks soared on Monday, but were tame yesterday and starting off flat this morning. ADP released better then expected employment numbers and we will see if that coincides with a better report from the Federal government later in the week. MBS had a strong rally [...]

For information on highlighted terms in the commentary, click here. In what I considered a surprise, the Dow shot up 200 points yesterday. Among mixed economic news and following a decent July, I was fully prepared for investors to sell off and push stock prices lower. It is unclear whether we will be able to [...]

“There’s no question we had a material improvement in sentiment,” said William Bellamy, director of fixed income at Thompson, Siegel & Walmsley in Richmond, Va. “In a highly uncertain environment, people have a tendency to flock to what won’t hurt them very much.” The biggest hindrance to a recovery is the lack of job creation. [...]

“I don’t expect a double-dip. But we could be looking at a lost decade like Japan,” said analysts at Action Economics noted. The second quarter GDP numbers are being revised downwards, showing that the economy grew at a slower pace. In his comments last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economic outlook is “unusually [...]