interest rates: The Relationship Between Stocks and Rates
- 06/10/14 12:57 AM
There is an obvious relationship between the movement of stocks and interest rates. When the economy is doing better, stocks should also improve. This same stronger economy increases inflationary pressures which causes interest rates to rise. In addition, when stocks are doing well, more investors put their money in the stock market as opposed to bonds. So, on days that stocks are doing well, interest rates are increasing which means that bonds are not doing so well. Seems simple, right? Look over the past five years and it is not so simple. For the past five years stocks have done … (0 comments)
interest rates: Historical Perspective of Interest Rates
- 03/31/14 04:33 AM
Rates on home loans have risen during the past year. Yet, every time this trend is reported in the media, we also hear that rates are historically low. So, what does “historically low” actually mean? Does it mean that we are a little under the norm, or way under for the historic average? The chart below covers rates on 30-year mortgages over the past 40 to 45 years. You can see that rates have actually averaged slightly over 8.0% over that time period. The high was over 18% and the low was in the "mid-3s" during 2013. In 2014 rates … (0 comments)
interest rates: Employment Picture Becomes Cloudy
- 01/16/14 03:42 AM
Just when we were starting to get used to strong jobs data we were reminded of an important adage — never try to predict the future. While the analysts were predicting December job growth would be around 200,000, the number came in short of 100,000. This number disappointed the markets. In a strange twist, the unemployment rate fell from 7.0% to 6.7% when no decrease was expected, but this was not seen as a sign of strength as many left the workforce in December.
In all, the economy added just over two million jobs in 2013 which is pretty … (0 comments)
interest rates: Europe Rises From Recession
- 08/30/13 03:34 AM
Many have wondered why interest rates have risen so sharply this year without the economy showing significant enough strength to heat up inflationary pressures. Yes, the threat of the Federal Reserve decreasing stimulus by lowering their purchases of Treasuries and Mortgage Backed Securities hovers over the markets. Yet, the Fed would not be considering lessening stimulus if they were not more confident about the economy. One must remember that these extraordinary measures were put in place to keep us out of a second recession as the world-wide economy was slowing while we were struggling to come back from our deep recession. … (0 comments)
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