Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The economic news of the day was a "mixed bag" with the Commerce Department reporting weaker-than-expected July housing starts and building permit numbers while the Labor Department released data showing prices at the farm and factory gate rose for the first-time in four months.

The Federal Reserve chimed-in a little later in the morning with a report showing July industrial production rose a better than expected 1.0% while capacity utilization, a measure of the amount an industrial plant that is in use, rose to 74.8% last month from 74.1% in June.

Mortgage investors currently view the collective data as suggesting the pace of economic growth may remain robust enough to avoid the threat of a deeper recessionary plunge - a perspective that caused more than a few investors to do some profit-taking before mortgage-backed securities slip too far past their historical highs.

No comments:

Post a Comment