{"id":189254,"date":"2010-04-28T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T01:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/28\/economics-update-61\/"},"modified":"2010-04-28T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T01:01:00","slug":"economics-update-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/28\/economics-update-61\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the Federal Reserves Open Market Committee (<span>FOMC<\/span>) has spoken, and it has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSTRE63Q4BA20100428?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Business+News%29\">kept its benchmark rate at effectively 0, and repeated its statement that the rates will remain low for an extended period<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not an unexpected development.  After all, the economy still sucks.<\/p>\n<p>In real estate, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/36820511\">mortgage applications fell overall, but home purchase applications rose<\/a>.  This is probably the interplay of rising rates versus the expiration of the home purchase tax credit.<\/p>\n<p>In the real world, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.truckline.com\/pages\/article.aspx?id=705%2F%7B8E1C7279-ED27-4C03-B189-CEEEE26BBB12%7D\">American Trucking <span>Aassociation&#8217;s<\/span> Trucking Tonnage Index rose in March<\/a>, indicating that there is something positive going on.<\/p>\n<p>In the world of sovereign debt, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/36822959\">US Treasury 5-year bonds&#8217; <span>yeild<\/span> rose to 2.54%<\/a>, though compared to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/greek-bonds-in-free-fall-two-year-yield-over-20-2010-04-28\">yield on 2-year Greek    bonds<\/a>, which are now over 20% (!), it&#8217;s pretty cheap money.<\/p>\n<p>Also note that in the continuing euro zone meltdown, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=a7RUqDpk0W4Y&amp;pos=1\">Spain\u2019s debt rating was cut S&amp;P<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In energy and currency, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2010\/04\/28\/markets\/oil\/\">oil rose on the news that the <span>FOMC&#8217;s<\/span> posture is unchanged<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=arw9qc34IQ7s&amp;pos=2\">dollar rose on <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=arw9qc34IQ7s&amp;pos=2\">continued  <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=arw9qc34IQ7s&amp;pos=2\">Euro zone problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the Federal Reserves Open Market Committee (FOMC) has spoken, and it has kept its benchmark rate at effectively 0, and repeated its statement that the rates will remain low for an extended period. Not an unexpected development. After all, the economy still sucks. In real estate, mortgage applications fell overall, but home purchase applications &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,984,1004,1088,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-europe","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}