My New Blog

 
Anthony Hood
Equity Investment Capital
Office: 949-891-0067
Email: tony@equityinvestmentcapital.com
website: www.equityinvestmentcapital.com
 

Building Strong, Lasting Relationships; One Client at a Time.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

This Week is employment week on Friday, between Monday and Friday however there are a number of key economic reports. The markets start Monday with developments over the weekend in Egypt and the equity markets looking toppy and possibly headed for a long overdue correction. At the end of last week the famous 10 yr treasury note yield fell to 3.31% on Friday and closed at 3.33%, the bottom of its six week trading range (33 market days). A break in stocks and increased fears about the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt should push interest rates lower on safety moves, if however stocks hold and there is no escalation of concerns in the mid-east the 10 yr and mortgages will move back to the top of their ranges on yields.
 
Economic data this week has Dec personal income and spending, the ISM manufacturing and service sectors indexes, Jan auto sales, Dec construction spending and the employment report. Early forecasts for all non-farm job growth is for an increase of 150K jobs, private non-farm jobs up 163K and the unemployment rates at 9.6%, up 0.2% from Dec. There are no Treasury auctions this week.
 
Mortgage interest rates have been very stable now for the past five weeks, not a bad thing as consumers continue to digest the spike up in rates last Nov and early Dec. If the rate markets do improve this week it will present an opportunity to get deals done, unlikely any rate improvements will last long with the economic outlook improving. Lots of talk about inflation, although it hasn't shown itself yet with rates so low just the thought of it will keep longer term rates for holding these low levels for long.