August 23, 2010
August 23, 2010 by admin
The markets strong start lost momentum over the course of trading on Monday and the market ended up dropping nearly forty points in trading. The dip follows a swing of nearly 100 points in light trading on Monday as investors pulled back when he market was up nearly fifty points when the market opened this morning. The lack of gains were propelled by a relatively slow day of news and no market moving economic reports.
The double dip economic theme continues to be central on investors minds as confidence has all but eroded that the recovery would gain steam into the second half of 2010. The drop in confidence is likely going to weigh on the retail and real estate sectors for the upcoming months and quarters. The fallout in real estate is bringing to life new ideas to try and stabilize home prices. The inability for loan modifications and historical low rates to reduce inventories of bank foreclosed homes has been a well documented challenge over the last two years. A proposal to offer struggling borrowers the ability to rent their present homes from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac as opposed to being foreclosed and adding more distressed real estate into the marketplace has resurfaced as ideas to try and bring some relief to the real estate market continue to make the rounds.
One common theme that has been making headlines regularly is the historical low mortgage rates that are presently available. Fixed mortgage rates for thirty year loan terms were available around 4.4% with most national mortgage lenders on Monday. Fifteen year loan terms were available in the high three percent range. Mortgage rates were flat in trading on Monday with little movement, despite a dip in equities. Yields on the ten year treasury bond were also flat as the ten year closed at 2.6% on Monday.
