Phil Grossfield's Blog

My Schedule…and A Little Extra:  I completed my Fantasy Football draft last night.  There are 10 teams…I had the 10^th and 11^th pick. I’m not particularly happy with my team…I have no superstar player but each year I seem to make decent moves to be in the running.  I won the championship the first year the league was formed…since then I have come in second place and won the scoring title but not first place…that’s close to 20 years now.  Therefore, I will be making some comments in my Extra and asking for some advice….  Click to see my draft – My Team.

My Market Watch:  Rates are worse after a mid-day price worsening yesterday.  Stocks improved I suspect in anticipation of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) meeting this morning which announced their new bond buying program…the idea is to give banks the ability to lend more easily which would bring an influx of capital.  Traders interpreted the ECB news as a positive economic indicator and as such they sold off bonds to make room to buy stocks.  When that happens, rates/prices get worse.  Tomorrow is the big Jobs Report…we could also see the markets move significantly.  However, some traders already made their moves because they expect the numbers tomorrow to come in high.  That is, many traders are anticipating the Jobs Report tomorrow will be positive for the economy and as such, they started investing in stocks yesterday in the hopes the prices will go higher tomorrow…buy low (yesterday) and sell high (hopefully tomorrow), right?  Well, that can come back to bite you in the you know what, that is if the Jobs Report comes in lower than expected.  From the mortgage perspective, if the Jobs Report is better than expected tomorrow, then you can bet that rates/prices will get worse.  On the other hand, if the Jobs Report comes in worse than expected, then you should see an improvement to rates/prices.   My Disclaimer

My Schedule: Working from home this morning and then out this afternoon.

SIGN UP FOR THE TRAVELMAMS BOOK INTEREST LIST

THIS TAKES 10 SECONDS…DO IT FOR ME! J:  Join The Travel Mamas’ Guide Interest List now!

My wife is The Travel Mama and is publishing her book in a couple months.  We want to have as many interested people signed up as possible so please sign up on the Interest List by clicking the link above.  Click here to see the book cover.  Click here to go to TravelMamas.com.