All Paper Economy

As of February, prices have dropped 4.43 percent below the level seen in February 2011, slumping through the winter months

Initial jobless claims  declined to 357,000 claims from last week’s revised 363,000 claims, while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 16,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6 percent.

The business activity index declined 5.91% since February but remained 0.51% above the level seen a year earlier.

Private employers added 209,000 jobs in March, bringing the total employment level 1.75 percent above the level seen in March 2011

The average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage declined 7 basis points to 4.03 percent since last week while the purchase application volume increased 7.2 percent and the refinance application climbed 4.0 percent over the same period.

In January, 64,307 recipients were removed from the food stamps program, but participation continues to rise on a year over year basis.

Reports from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City are indicating that manufacturing activity declined to a weak growth level of 9 in March. 

On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased a slight 0.03 percent from January and rose 5.59 percent above the level seen in February 2011, while remaining a whopping 63.56 percent below the peak level seen in 2006.

The economy may be growing at a faster rate than initially thought, with the real GDP expanding at  an annualized rate of 3 percent from the third quarter of 2011.

Initial jobless claims declined to 359,000 claims from last week’s revised 364,000 claims, while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 41,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6 percent.

The average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage increased 4 basis points to 4.10% since last week, while the purchase application volume increased 3.3 percent and the refinance application dropped 4.6% over the same period.

The home price price index declined 0.83 percent since December while the Composite-20 index declined 0.84 percent  over the same period resulting in the lowest level seen to on the Composite-10 since June 2003 and the largest peak decline seen since the nearly six year old housing bust began in 2006.

Pending home sales declined a bit with the seasonally adjusted national index, falling 0.5 percent since January while increasing 9.2 percent above the level seen in February 2011.

New residential home sales dropped 1.57 percent since January but rose 11.4 percent  above the level seen in February of last year.

Initial jobless claims  declined to 348,000 claims from last week’s revised 353,000 claims, while continued claims declined by 9,000 resulting in an 'insured' unemployment rate of 2.6 percent

Single family home sales declined 1.0 percent from January but rose 9.4 percent above the level seen in February 2011.

The average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage jumped 12 basis points to 4.06 percent since last week, while the purchase application volume declined 1.0 percent and the refinance application dropped 9.3 percent over the same period.

Single family housing permits increased a whopping 4.9 percent from last month to 472,000 single family units, but single family housing starts plunged 9.86 percent to 457,000 units.

The latest Housing Market Index (HMI) shows a flattening of most measures in March with the composite HMI index remaining unchanged at 28. The "buyer traffic" index stayed put at 22.

The average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage declined 3 basis points to 3.94 percent since last week while the purchase application volume increased 4.4 percent and the refinance application declined 4.10 percent over the same period.