As reported yesterday, Sacramento was one of the leading areas in job loss last month (you know leading in one of those races you'd rather finish last in), and the unfortunate position allowed the capital city to buck the more pleasant nationwide trend of a decreasing job loss rate. Today nationwide numbers were released and jobless claims fell 24,000 to 435,000 putting the total below the magical number of 450,000. Unfortunately, most people don't feel jobless rates are improving anytime soon, and are welcoming the drop below the once-magical 450,000 with more of a Kazoo-like-celebration than the full brass-band-blowout we were all searching for.
10 year notes continue to subtly climb, questioning the effectiveness of QEII. Critics of the move, like Douglas Hotlz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office think the move was too early and will not have the "greasing the wheel" effect the increased liquidity was intended for. Guess it was more of a broken wheel bearing than a rusty fitting.
Rates took a 1/2 point hit yesterday afternoon in a widely anticipated short term spike. A mild fall back occurred over night.
Nationwide the refinance percentage for overall mortgage related activity rose .4% to 81.7% (imagine what it would be if more people had enough equity in their homes to qualify?).
No comments:
Post a Comment