This week will be jam-packed with economic reports that can have a big impact on the markets and home loan rates:

• We’ll see more housing news this week with the New Home Sales report right away Monday morning, followed by the Pending Home Sales report on Thursday.
• Consumers are also in the news this week. First, we’ll see the Consumer Confidence report on Tuesday, followed by the Consumer Sentiment Index on Friday. Both those reports give us some insight into how confident consumers are in the economy. Second, we’ll get a look at Personal Spending and Personal Income on Friday - which provide insight into the financial picture of consumers.
• The Federal Reserve holds its FOMC meeting this Tuesday and Wednesday, with the release of its Policy Statement coming Wednesday afternoon. As always, what the Fed says could impact home loan rates.
• Speaking of the Fed, we’ll see the Fed’s favorite gauge of inflation this Friday in the Personal Consumption Expenditures report.
• We’ll also get a read on the economic recovery with Wednesday’s Durable Good Orders, which gives us an update on consumer and business buying behavior on big-ticket items that are designed to last for an extended period of time, like furniture, televisions, appliances, vehicles, copy machines, and so on.
• On Thursday, the markets will see the latest report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - which is the broadest measure of economic activity - as well as Friday's Chicago PMI, which is a good indicator of overall economic activity.
• The Jobless Claims report also comes out Thursday. In the latest week’s report, Initial Jobless Claims fell but still remained above that pesky 400,000 level as the job market continues to be a thorn in the side of the economy. Until we can see a pattern of unemployment claims well below 400,000, we will not see a significant fall in the Unemployment Rate.
• Finally, on Friday the Employment Cost Index (ECI) will be released. The ECI is one way to evaluate wage trends and the risk of wage inflation, as well as possible price pressures. This is important to the housing industry because if wage inflation threatens, it is possible home loan rates will rise through Bond prices dropping.

Remember: Weak economic news normally causes money to flow out of Stocks and into Bonds, helping Bonds and home loan rates improve, while strong economic news normally has the opposite result.
As you can see in the parallel black lines on the right side of the chart below, Bonds hovered in a tight range and were unable to improve much last week due to rising Stocks and inflation concerns.
Those two elements only add to the headwinds for Bonds and indicate that now may be the ideal time to take advantage of low home loan rates. Call or email to see how you can benefit by acting now.

How is the housing industry holding up? And what does the labor market look like? We’ll see this week.

In the early days of this week, the news will shift to the health of the housing industry, and then end with more labor and manufacturing news. Here are some of the reports to watch:

• We’ll start out Tuesday morning with new reports on Housing Starts and Building Permits in March.
• Those reports will be followed on Wednesday by a report on Existing Home Sales in March. So by mid-week, we’ll have a good look at the health of the housing industry. Feel free to call or email me to discuss how these reports came in and what impact they may have.
• Thursday we’ll see the weekly Initial Jobless Claims Report. In the report released last week, Initial Jobless Claims climbed higher to 412,000, and above the psychologically significant 400,000 mark for the first time since March 5th. Funny how those round numbers work with our brains - it's the same logic as why something at the store costs $7.99, instead of $8.00. Overall, the report indicated that employment growth continues to muddle along.
• Also on Thursday, we’ll see more manufacturing news - this time in the form of the Philadelphia Fed Index, which is considered an important indicator of the manufacturing industry and, therefore, has the potential to move the markets depending on how it comes in.

Remember: Weak economic news normally causes money to flow out of Stocks and into Bonds, helping Bonds and home loan rates improve, while strong economic news normally has the opposite result.
As you can see in the chart below, Bonds climbed at the end of last week, due in large part to the report that inflation remained contained for now.
Remember, inflation is the archenemy of Bonds and home loan rates. So the news of contained inflation was good for Bonds and home loan rates - making this a good time to purchase or refinance a home. Call today to get started.

Chart: Fannie Mae 4.0% Mortgage Bond (Friday Apr 15, 2011)

The Jobs Report for March was released on April 1, and that’s no joke. But did the numbers give us something to smile about?

People say that "life is full of surprises." And last week’s Jobs Report offered a few surprises of its own. But were those surprises positive, and what do they mean for home loan rates overall? Read on for details.

The headline Jobs Report number showed that 216,000 jobs were created in March, which was a positive surprise as this was above expectations. In addition, 230,000 jobs were created in the private sector, which was also better than expectations and offset a decline in government jobs. A small 2,000 upwards revision to February's prior release added some more jobs as well.

In addition, the Unemployment Rate surprisingly dropped to 8.8%, which is the lowest unemployment rate since March of 2009. Remember, the Unemployment Rate is derived from the Household Survey (exactly as it sounds, from calls made to households), and is considered to be more accurate than the Current Employment Statistics or Business Survey (again as it sounds, from calls made to businesses), which is used to determine the headline jobs number.

The one negative within the report is Hourly Earnings coming in at 0.0%. This is the second month in a row where earnings growth is 0.0%. Why is this significant? If earnings don't grow, people have less to spend and as a forward looking indicator on job growth, it shows that businesses are presently not under any pressure to raise wages. This means they may not have to hire new people as quickly because they may have room to raise wages for present workers down the road.
Overall, the Jobs Report was a good report and reminds us that the trend in the labor market is improving. But keep in mind, while lowering unemployment is good for our economy overall – as are the other two goals (creating inflation and boosting Stock prices) of the Fed’s current Quantitative Easing (QE2) program – these goals can also lead to higher home loan rates over time.
In fact, inflation continues to be a growing concern both around the world and here in the U.S., as several members of the Fed, including St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, have expressed concern that if the Fed waits "too long (to remove accommodative monetary policy) we will get a lot of inflation in the United States and around the world."
What does this mean in the long run? Like the Treasury Department, at some point the Fed will start selling some of its massive holdings and unwind their QE1 and QE2 purchases. And when it does, not only will the Bond market lose a buyer in the Fed, but they will gain a seller and this will make it hard for Mortgage Backed Securities and home loan rates, which are tied to these types of Bonds, to meaningfully improve.
If you have been thinking about purchasing or refinancing a home, call or email me to learn more about how you can benefit. Or forward this newsletter on to someone you know who may benefit from today’s historically low rates.