Stocks are higher this morning on positive trade comments out of China. Bonds and MBS are up.
The European Central bank left rates unchanged, which is helping bonds rally.
Inflation at the consumer level came in weaker than expected, with the Consumer Price Index rising 0.2% MOM and 2.7% YOY. Both numbers were 10 basis points below Street estimates. Ex-food and energy, they were up 0.1% / 2.2%, which pretty close to the Fed's target. Falling health care costs, which make up about 10% of the index, helped offset increasing housing costs.
Increased housing costs are fueling a rise in home improvement activity. Both The Home Despot and Lowes are surging following results. Consumer Comfort rose for the first time in 5 weeks. Despite the run over the last month, the index is at highs not seen since 2000 (as are most of the consumer confidence / sentiment indices).
Initial Jobless Claims fell to 204,000, which is another 50 year record. When you take into account population growth, the number becomes even more dramatic:
Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, but it is still expected to pack a wallop and dump a lot of rain. The hurricane is expected to dump 20-30 inches of rain over the area, which means flooding issues well inland. Servicers should expect to see an uptick in DQs going into the end of the year. Note that fewer households have flood insurance this time around. “Residents of these states are materially less prepared than they were in the past to deal with the financial consequences associated with major flooding events,” said Robert Hartwig, a risk-management and insurance professor at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business.
Ex-US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is getting into the mortgage business, joining the advisory board of Blend, which is a consumer finance start-up that handles online mortgage applications for the GSEs and some of the larger banks.
Doug Kass made the great observation about the business media and the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis, recalling Mickey Mantle's observation: "I didn't know how easy the game of baseball was until I entered the broadcasting booth."
HUD Secretary Ben Carson plans on doing more to remove zoning impediments to multifamily construction, though his approach will be different than the Obama Adminstration's. He plans on using Community Development Block Grant funds to encourage changes in zoning. The Obama admin sued localities directly, with the most prominent case being Westchester County in New York. Westchester County ended up being able to fend off HUD for the most part, which kind of shows the futility of that exercise. Westchester should have been a lay-up. Separately, the House is looking at regulatory costs and multifamily construction, which supposedly account for 30% of the cost of multi fam homebuilding according to NAHB.
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