Category Archives: Weekly Financial News

Spring Housing Inventories Too Low

The Mortgage Corner The spring home buying season is already here, reports Realtor.com. In February, the total number of single-family homes, condos, townhomes and co-ops for sale in the U.S. (1,494,218) increased by 1.15 percent month-over-month. On an annual basis, … Continue reading

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Higher Retail Sales Point to Consumer Health

Popular Economics Weekly Consumers are buying more, a reflection of improving incomes and the jobs market. The U.S. Census Bureau announced Wednesday that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday … Continue reading

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Ryan’s 19th Century Budget Plan

Financial FAQs Republican Paul Ryan’s 2011 budget plan is being trotted out by House Republicans once again. In spite of the sequester cuts and a declining budget deficit, Ryan wants to create even more economic austerity. Representative Ryan and House … Continue reading

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Consumers Key to Future Growth

Popular Economics Weekly The February unemployment report gives a big boost to predictions for 2013 growth. The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, and some 236,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added to the workforce (246,000 private payroll jobs, less 10,000 … Continue reading

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Expanding Service Sector Will Boost Growth

Financial FAQs Why are stock indexes breaking records? Part of it is because of record corporate profits (which affects price-to-earnings ratios), up 20 annually since the end of 2008, as well as good job news that is boosting investor optimism. … Continue reading

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January Housing Prices, Mortgages, Surging

The Mortgage Corner CoreLogic reported that home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased on a year-over-year basis by 9.7 percent in January 2013 compared to January 2012. This change represents the biggest increase since April 2006 and the 11th consecutive … Continue reading

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Let’s Bring Back American Jobs

Popular Economics Weekly It’s well-known that American job formation isn’t keeping up with economic growth, but not why. It’s mostly because corporations have been retaining more of their profits and sharing less with their employees, so that household incomes have … Continue reading

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When Is Federal Debt Not a Burden?

Financial FAQs The sequester advocates have gotten their way. The March 1 deadline has passed to reach an agreement to alter the across the board spending cuts and so governments will begin the draconian job cuts that will certainly slow … Continue reading

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Mortgage Delinquencies Lowest Since 2008

The Mortgage Corner The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.09 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012, the lowest level since 2008, … Continue reading

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Bernanke’s Fed Growing U.S. Economy

Popular Economics Weekly Right now, the Federal Reserve seems to be the only government agency focused on growing the economy. Washington has otherwise been focused on the sequester agreement, or how to further cut government spending. But such austerity measures … Continue reading

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