Final Update/ Week of July 27, 2009

Good Morning Everyone and Happy Friday! Yesterday saw the stock markets try to regain their advances from the morning, only to drop off at the end of the day. The Dow, up almost 200 points with a couple hours left to closing bell, fell off about 100 points by the end of the session. Today’s stock markets are holding their own, and are poised to post their best July in 20 years. Credit markets continue the rally they experienced at the end of the day yesterday. Our pricing is anywhere from .375 to .500 better in rebate since yesterday morning’s rate sheet. NICE! If you’re anxious to get some loans locked today, I’m all for it, I’ll be here all day to help you. But, I see this trend continuing into next week as earnings season slows down and there are no Treasury auctions to compete for the investors’ dollar.

Cash for Clunkers is getting more attention this morning that the release of the long awaited 2nd quarter GDP. The Cash for Clunkers program saw 23,000 dealers sign up for it, desperate to boost sales. After 4 days (this is supposed to continue until November) we’ve already blown through the billion dollars allotted for the program. Congress is scrambling to find some money to up the dollars available to keep this wildly popular program intact.

The 2nd Quarter GDP ended up not having quite the fireworks that many had expected. Analysts were looking for a drop of 1.5%, and the report showed that the economy only contracted by 1.0%. This could be perceived as good news, except the 1st Quarter GDP was revised to 6.4% from an originally reported 5.5% -- that’s quite a change! Makes you wonder what this number (Q2) will get revised to be later this year. Even still, the change from negative 6.4% to only negative 1.0% is quite an improvement. Expectations are that Q3 will actually report a positive (though nominally) number. This could end 4 straight quarters of negative growth . . . a record not seen in over 60 years. Anyway, the report had relatively little affect on stock markets.

There are a slew of other economic reports and earnings today, I’ll let you read them at your own interest level. What’s important to us is the delivery rate for the MBS’s was 4.87% yesterday at this time, and it 4.72% now. That’s quite an improvement, though nominal for the week. We knew that past week was going to be volatile, and we expect next week to settle down quite a bit. I’ll be here all day today to help you with any loan scenario or pricing questions. Call me here at the office if you need me . . . and have a terrific Friday and a very restful and relaxing weekend!