Sunday, January 21, 2007

10-Year Treasury and Housing

Talk of a housing bottom started sometime in October. Since then we've gotten more news on new and existing home sales to stoke talk of a housing bottom (We've also had home builders report some really lousy earnings reports). In addition, interest rates started to drop about that same time. Here's a chart of the 10-year Treasury from stockcharts.com

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Rates have risen steadily since early December, largely because good economic news and public statements from various Fed governors dampened speculation of a rate cut in early 2007. As a result, the 10-year Treasury's interest rate is back near 4.84%. This was at least a non-restrictive interest level in October. We'll have to see if that still holds going forward.