March 10, 2009
March 10, 2009 by admin
The stock market posted it’s largest rally of the year on Tuesday rallying almost 400 points. Financial stocks rallied around a news report released early this morning from the Ceo of Citigroup and gathered momentum as the FOMC chairman Ben Bernanke spoke about the state of the financial industry prior to the market opening. Financial stocks have seen their market caps lose trillions of dollars over the past year as investors have agressively sold out of these companies and speculation that most major banks will need to fall under a nationalization program have led investors to believe these companies offer little or no value as the U.S. deals with it’s worst recession of the past twenty years.
The housing market has shown some regional signs of improvement, but home values continue to decline. Home mortgage rates remain at historic low levels and most national mortgage lenders are offering fifteen year fixed loans with rates under five percent. Despite the historically low interest rates, refinance applications have begun to drop sharply as consumers explore other alternatives such as loan modifications to try and navigate their home finances.