Free Republic

"When you’re not working, what do you do to de-stress?” That was the last question Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, fielded at an investor conference on Tuesday this week. “Cycling is my advice,” he replied. “Living in Northern California and being on the peninsula. That’s just—I think it’s the best bike-riding cycling in the world, period.”Three days later, Becker’s bank is in receivership. We’ve talked before about the interest rate risk that lurks on banks’ balance sheets and how the industry manages it. During the pandemic, banks took in record volumes of new deposits. Between the end of...

Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates following bond yields higher, and reaching new highs for the year, with the expectant release of the Fed’s comments around taper timing of its bond purchase program. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.58 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending August 22, 2013, up from last week when it averaged 4.40 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.66 percent. freddie30 Here is the Freddie rate against the 10 year Treasury yield. freddie30t30y Mortgage-backed securities...

I am going on Fox Business with Adam Shapiro at 2:45pm EST today to discuss the housing recovery and whether it is sustainable. While mulling over the data, I noticed a disturbing trend. Mortgage rates for consumers are rising with additional Fed asset purchases. We are all aware of The Fed’s massive intervention in the economy through its quantitative easing programs beginning in September 2008. But what is lost on that chart is the dramatic growth in Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) since the beginning of October 2012. Agency MBS, in particular, has risen dramatically. But has the massive...

Average Duration Of Unemployment Hits Brand New Record In January Joe Weisenthal | Feb. 5, 2010, 8:51 AM Now this is not good news on the unemployment front. /snip The average unemployed worker is now unemployed for 30.2 weeks, compared to 29.1 weeks in December and 28.6 in November. There are now 6.3 million Americans who have been unemployed over 27 weeks.

Consistent with the Johnston et al. account of Bush’s late surge in battleground states, we find advertising effects that are both fairly large in magnitude and short-lived. As in some other studies, we also find that low to middle information voters are most susceptible to these persuasion effects. In combination with other recent studies, our findings of short, sharp advertising effects must be taken seriously. The decay effects uncovered by Gerber et al. are much more rapid than any previous scholar had assumed -- so much more rapid as to raise the question of how previous research has been able...

AMERICAN military chiefs believe that the global war against terrorism will last at least six years. Pentagon officials are being advised to draw up budgets and plans to buy new equipment on the assumption that the struggle against al-Qa'eda and other international terrorist groups will endure until 2008, and perhaps even longer. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, has won President Bush's backing for a sharp increase in military spending. Extra money will be allocated for more of the weapons that have proved useful in Afghanistan, such as unmanned surveillance and attack aircraft. The increased spending will continue whether or ...

President Bush, during an address to the nation on March 17, gave a 48 hour deadline toSaddam Hussein to leave Iraq or else the United States and its coalition allies willinitiate a military action against the Iraqi regime. The deadline for Hussein to enter exilewould be 8:00 PM EST on March 19, by this time nearly all of the final preparations would be completed.Military operations against Iraq began at around 9:30 PM EST on March 19.

<p>It's March 2000 all over again. But this time, the frenzied buyers aren't focusing on stocks.</p> <p>Spooked by the prospect of war and anxious for any semblance of safety, bond investors have bid up the price of 10-year Treasury notes, so that they yield just 3.57%.</p>