Good Morning Everyone and Happy Monday! Last week was another positive week for the 3 major equity indices. The Dow continues its trek upward gaining altitude almost every week since Sept. 1st. Last week's gains were minimum -- less than half of 1%, but a positive number nonetheless. Friday's trading volume was robust amid all of headline news and the expiration of monthly options. The 1.4B shares traded on the NYSE was the 2nd highest total since July.
The NASDAQ is now up 200 points for the year, a gain of nearly 9%. This improvement for the NASDAQ in 2010 is largely due to Google's topping $600 a share and Apple's 49% gain in stock price this year, topping $300 a share last week. The Dow is up a whopping 678 points for 2010 representing a 6.5% improvement.
Also on Friday, former Countrywide Financial Chairman Angelo Mozilo and two defendants reached an agreement with federal regulators to settle civil fraud and insider-trading charges. The SEC alleged that the defendants hid from the public the problems in Countrywide's portfolio of risky sub prime loans. Those problems eventually forced the mortgage giant's 2008 sale to Bank of America, which isn't involved in the SEC suit. Mozilo agreed to $67.5 million in penalties and disgorged profits, the largest-ever settlement between the SEC and a public company's senior executive. It would be interesting to find out what portion of Mozilo's net worth is represented by $67.5M. Painful, I'm sure it was, but I doubt he'll have to sell the yacht to pay the penalty.
Earnings season continues this week with Citigroup posting better than expected earnings this morning. In economic news, the only report worth noting is the Industrial Production report which showed a decrease of 0.2%, which contrasts with the consensus call for a 0.2% increase. Treasuries, however, are rallying today and pricing should be improved over Friday on your favorite rate sheet this morning. Look for this trend in credit markets to continue through the first part of this week.
I hope you all have a terrific Monday and a very profitable and productive week!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Communication from ARA MELKONIANS/ Update #1/ Week of October 11, 2010
Good Morning Everyone and Happy Monday! It looks to be a very quiet day in equity markets this morning. There are no major economic news releases due out today, the Treasury market is closed for Columbus Day, and I have to expect that many traders are also taking advantage of the day off as many financial institutions are closed today as well. There are also no major corporate announcements or earnings reports due out today.
Last week ended up being a pretty good week for stock markets. The Dow closed up 176 points in the 5-day stretch, topping the 11,000 mark for the first time since the beginning of May. There's been no looking back for the Dow since the Sept 1 rally of 255 points. August 31st's closing at 10,015 compared to today's current reading of 11,015 means that the major index has risen 10% now in a month and 1/2 -- a pretty impressive 6 weeks! The NASDAQ tacked on 31 points last week, and the S&P posted a 19 point gain for the bulls.
Mortgage Rates remain steady…
I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get things into full swing with the markets. I hope you all have a terrific Monday and a very profitable and productive week!
Last week ended up being a pretty good week for stock markets. The Dow closed up 176 points in the 5-day stretch, topping the 11,000 mark for the first time since the beginning of May. There's been no looking back for the Dow since the Sept 1 rally of 255 points. August 31st's closing at 10,015 compared to today's current reading of 11,015 means that the major index has risen 10% now in a month and 1/2 -- a pretty impressive 6 weeks! The NASDAQ tacked on 31 points last week, and the S&P posted a 19 point gain for the bulls.
Mortgage Rates remain steady…
I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get things into full swing with the markets. I hope you all have a terrific Monday and a very profitable and productive week!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Communication from ARA MELKONIANS/ Week of October 4, 2010/ Final Weekly Update
Good Afternoon Everyone and Happy Friday! Earnings season unofficially kicked off yesterday after the stock markets closed. Alcoa reported better-than-expected results, which should generally be the pattern for this earnings season since companies have had a chance now to issue realistic guidance reports all year so far. There shouldn't be many surprises in the reports ahead, but it will be interesting to see how the markets react as the month of October plays out.
The much anticipated September nonfarm payrolls report was released earlier this morning which showed a drop of 95,000 jobs, which is in contrast to the call for no net change made by economists. Private payrolls however increased 64,000, which is less than the 74,000 increase that had been widely expected. The unemployment rate remained at 9.6%, despite predictions for a rise to 9.7%. So all in all, the unemployment rate stayed the same, no reason for worry out there, right?
Traders are shrugging off the Labor Dept's report as a "not as bad as it could have been" event and all markets are rallying at this time. The Dow is up over 50 points, commodities are up across the board and Treasuries are rallying, too! The 10 year note yield is at 2.34%, the lowest in over a year.
Freddie Mac (FHLMC) reported this morning that their owner occupied thirty-year fixed mortgages slipped to 4.27% this week, the lowest on records dating back to 1971, from 4.32 percent last week. I'm thinkin' we're going to see another record next week, what do you think? This is certainly a great time to be in the business for those of us survivors.
And as always . . . I hope you all have a terrific Friday and a very restful and relaxing weekend!
The much anticipated September nonfarm payrolls report was released earlier this morning which showed a drop of 95,000 jobs, which is in contrast to the call for no net change made by economists. Private payrolls however increased 64,000, which is less than the 74,000 increase that had been widely expected. The unemployment rate remained at 9.6%, despite predictions for a rise to 9.7%. So all in all, the unemployment rate stayed the same, no reason for worry out there, right?
Traders are shrugging off the Labor Dept's report as a "not as bad as it could have been" event and all markets are rallying at this time. The Dow is up over 50 points, commodities are up across the board and Treasuries are rallying, too! The 10 year note yield is at 2.34%, the lowest in over a year.
Freddie Mac (FHLMC) reported this morning that their owner occupied thirty-year fixed mortgages slipped to 4.27% this week, the lowest on records dating back to 1971, from 4.32 percent last week. I'm thinkin' we're going to see another record next week, what do you think? This is certainly a great time to be in the business for those of us survivors.
And as always . . . I hope you all have a terrific Friday and a very restful and relaxing weekend!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Communication From ARA MELKONIANS/ Final Update/ Week of September 27, 2010
Good Afternoon Everyone and Happy Friday! The Dow Jones Industrial Average successfully posted its best September in 71 years as it closed with a 47 point loss yesterday. This is the best month for the stock market since April of 2009. The bulls are trying to get a rockin' start to the new month and new quarter early this morning, but have hit some resistance in the last hour.
Personal income for August increased 0.5%, which is greater than the 0.3% increase that had been expected. Income in the prior month increased 0.2%. Spending for September increased 0.4%, which is greater than the 0.3% increase that had been widely expected, but consistent with the 0.4% increase of the prior month. Also consistent with the prior month, core personal consumption expenditures increased 0.1% month-over-month, as expected. Stock markets rallied on the news right out of the gate.
However, helping to smack down the rally was the September ISM Manufacturing Index which slipped to 54.4 from 56.3 in August, but the consensus of experts had called for a reading of 54.8. Construction spending for August actually increased 0.4%, better than the 0.5% decrease that had been widely anticipated after a downwardly revised 1.4% drop in spending during in the prior month.
The final Consumer Sentiment Survey for September from the University of Michigan came in at 68.2, which is up from the 66.6 that had been reported in the preliminary reading and better than the 67.0 that had been widely expected.
As you can see, traders have a lot to digest on a Friday, and first day of the month. Stock markets shot up right out of the gate, dropped back almost to zero (NASDAQ and S&P dropped below the flat line) and then have since recovered to small gain. Look for things to settle down a bit now as traders want to close up their work and get out of town for the weekend.
Enjoy
Personal income for August increased 0.5%, which is greater than the 0.3% increase that had been expected. Income in the prior month increased 0.2%. Spending for September increased 0.4%, which is greater than the 0.3% increase that had been widely expected, but consistent with the 0.4% increase of the prior month. Also consistent with the prior month, core personal consumption expenditures increased 0.1% month-over-month, as expected. Stock markets rallied on the news right out of the gate.
However, helping to smack down the rally was the September ISM Manufacturing Index which slipped to 54.4 from 56.3 in August, but the consensus of experts had called for a reading of 54.8. Construction spending for August actually increased 0.4%, better than the 0.5% decrease that had been widely anticipated after a downwardly revised 1.4% drop in spending during in the prior month.
The final Consumer Sentiment Survey for September from the University of Michigan came in at 68.2, which is up from the 66.6 that had been reported in the preliminary reading and better than the 67.0 that had been widely expected.
As you can see, traders have a lot to digest on a Friday, and first day of the month. Stock markets shot up right out of the gate, dropped back almost to zero (NASDAQ and S&P dropped below the flat line) and then have since recovered to small gain. Look for things to settle down a bit now as traders want to close up their work and get out of town for the weekend.
Enjoy
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