August is now all but gone. The kids are back in school, and I am back to clocking into the office at 7:45 instead of waking up at that time. As this paragraph writes itself, the nostalgia of summer is winning out over anticipation of another workday ahead. But it’s Friday and I think that I can muster up the stamina to keep on task for another eight hours.
It’s been an interesting week or so in the financial markets. As fortunes are made and then lost again, Fed Governors speak their respective minds about the future of the economy and interest rates. Greece’s big fat catastrophe has given way to China’s tripping over it’s fast and furious financial schemes. Pricing on mortgages has whipsawed 150bps in the last ten days as stocks have attempted to stabilize after the DOW lost over 2,000 points in three days, to make back 1,000 in the last three trading sessions.
Pending Home Sales, Gross Domestic Product, and Consumer Confidence are all up, while Jobless Claims and Personal Consumption are down. None of these are earth shattering, nor do they affect me personally. After a steep decline, the price of oil seems ripe for a 10% rebound. That is news I can use since my car is just about empty. Few things heighten my excitement like a full tank of gas and an empty weekend ahead.
