Depending on your perspective as an investor in stocks, bonds or real estate, the post-election action in the financial markets has either been phenomenally great or dismally destructive! Of course if your portfolio is well diversified as the experts suggest that it should be, then that makes for an entirely different story altogether. Bond Market […]
As 2016 quickly winds down, the question now on the minds of homebuyers and home sellers is what 2017 will portend for the residential real estate market in the United States… Early on a Monday morning these are some points pondered by Hallmark Abstract Service with the thoughts from real estate industry giants Zillow and Realtor.com offered […]
How many acronyms will fit in one article title? For this weeks articles we’ll cap it at three! Many of this past weeks articles at the Hallmark Abstract Service blog focused on the global economy in conjunction with the turmoil in financial markets around the world. These three acronyms played a critical role… PIIGS: These are the five […]
Did Janet Yellen raise the fed funds rate in December only to turn around and lower it now? With the selloff in the equity market, sharp decline in the price of crude oil and uncertainty surrounding the U.S. and global economies, the LAST thing we need is for a crisis of confidence to develop concerning […]
The Federal Reserve, after raising its benchmark fed funds rate .25% in December 2015, yesterday left rates unchanged! The December increase was implemented despite inflation remaining well below the Fed’s target rate of 2% and in the face of an economic recovery that could be, at best, termed tepid. At the time some speculated that […]
In a move many market participants felt was long overdue, at its most recent meeting the Fed raised the fed funds rate .25%! And, after parsing the language in Janet Yellen’s statement, the belief is that 2016 may see two or three more hikes of .25% each leaving the fed funds rate in the .75%-1% range at the end of […]
Summary: Fed rate hikes, like eating Lay’s potato chips, are rarely done just once. Will the Fed raise rates tomorrow as expected and then what will be its plan going forward? ‘Fed Decision: It’s The Final Countdown (Video)‘ Today the Fed begins to deliberate about what will likely be the first interest rate hike in nine […]
Come the December Fed meeting and after the strong jobs report that was recently released, does the Fed have any choice but to raise rates? The betting in the futures market leans to the side of a Fed tightening, or raising, of rates. But some of the actual economic evidence may seem to indicate that […]
The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate: Stable prices and maximum employment! Given the state of that mandate vis a vis the current condition of the U.S. economy, the answer to the question of if and when the Fed will begin to raise rates is that no one knows. But nonetheless that question has become […]
In other words, will the Fed raise rates? On its surface the October jobs report blew away expectations showing that the economy added 280,000 jobs when the ‘experts’ and analysts were expecting only a 180,000 job add! In addition the unemployment rate ticked down to 5% from 5.1%. These results would make even the most […]
