Free Republic

The housing market in the US is improving (after wandering in the economic desert since 2008). It has been a slow recovery, but is getting some legs from investors buying discounted foreclosures. And foreign investors. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), mortgage applications rose by +7.66% SA from the previous week. Mortgage purchase applications rose 6.67% while refinancing applications from 7.98%. Over the past year, we saw the seasonal pattern where mortgage applications began slowing after Spring culminating in a plunge between Christmas and January 1st. But since January 1st, mortgage purchase applications have been increasing. But if we...

Between youth riots in Cyprus over the tax levy on deposits and the Eurogroup’s Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s verbal gaffes, it has been a busy day in Europe. First, the announcement of a deal on Cyprus sent the Euro Stoxx index upwards (resolution of uncertainty). Then Dijsselbloem said that the tax levy on Cyprus deposits was a template for other countries (massive creation of uncertainty). Then he said he wasn't sure what template meant. First, can you spot when Dijsselbloem made his template gaffe? Second, how could the CEO of the Eurogroup NOT know what a template is? Then adding gas...

The Cyprus banking crisis and a Cyprus default have been averted by the heavy hand of Northern Europe. That is, only tax depositors with EU100k or more in the bank. March 25 (Bloomberg) — Cyprus dodged a disorderly default and unprecedented exit from the euro by bowing to demands from creditors to shrink its banking system in exchange for 10 billion euros ($13 billion) of aid. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades agreed to shut the country’s second-largest bank under pressure from a German-led bloc in a night-time negotiating melodrama that threatened to rekindle the debt crisis and rattle markets. “It’s been...