Morning Report – Homeownership rate falls to 4-decade low 7/29/15

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Brent Nyitray

Markets are flattish as we await the FOMC decision. Bonds and MBS are down small.

Mortgage Applications rose 0.8% last week as purchases fell 0.1% and refis rose 1.6%.

Pending Home Sales fell 1.8% in June versus May, but are up 11.1% year over year.

Pretty much no one is forecasting a rate hike at today’s meeting, given there is no press conference. There is a chance of rate volatility around 2:00 pm, but I would expect the statement to say pretty much what the various Fed speakers have been saying for a while – the economy is improving, the labor market is losing some of its slack, inflation remains contained, and the Fed will remain data-dependent.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton reported yesterday, beating estimates. Orders increased 25%, closings increased 37%. Texas remains strong despite the drop in oil prices.

The homeownership rate fell to the lowest level since 1967. Basically all of the gains that began with the Great Bill Clinton / George W Bush experiment in using housing as a tool for social engineering have been given back. Note that household formation is finally back on the upswing, so we have a lot of pent-up demand.

Filed under: Morning Report | 29 Comments »

Windows 10 is Here 7/29/15

Posted on July 29, 2015 by markinaustin

http://www.cnet.com/products/microsoft-windows-10/

 

Yes, it is out 3 days before my retirement.  After which, of course, I will never need it again.

 

No matter whether MS “got it right” this time.  I write this on a laptop I loaded with Ubuntu (Linux) only and do not intend to be captive to an operating system monopoly ever again, once I do not require legal software apps that only run on MSW.

 

For those of you who must continue to use it, I hope it is all it’s cracked up to be.

Filed under: Open Thread, This Day in History | 4 Comments »