SDB Club Benchmark Real Estate

Most banks kept lending standards unchanged while loan demand weakened more gradually in the first quarter than previously, a Federal Reserve survey said on Monday, suggesting some glimmer of hope for borrowing and lending. The Fed’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Survey found that while banks were tightening their lending standards, the number doing so declined [...]

The Federal Reserve’s single largest intervention to prop up the American economy, its $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage-backed securities, came to a long-anticipated end on Wednesday. The program has been credited with holding mortgage interest rates at near-record lows and slowing the nationwide decline in home prices that threatened to send the economy into [...]

The Canadian dollar pushed higher Wednesday, trading briefly over 99 cents after the U.S. Federal Reserve reiterated Tuesday its intention to keep its benchmark lending rate at record lows for an extended period. The loonie might be pushing parity with the U.S. dollar, but if you’re looking for the cheapest double-double, you’re still better off [...]

Builders in February probably broke ground on the fewest U.S. homes since October, partly because of record snowfall in areas of the country, economists said before a government report today. Mounting foreclosures are making it harder to clear inventories, keeping pressure on prices and discouraging new construction. The economy has yet to create the sustained [...]

Market acts as a barometer for predicting rate hikes, but there are flaws Fed funds futures are often used as a window into when institutional investors expect the Federal Reserve to hike rates. But this little-understood market has weaknesses as a predictive tool, say traders. While huge at $440 billion, trading volume has declined since [...]

Service industries in the U.S. barely expanded in December, underscoring Federal Reserve forecasts that the economic recovery will be slow to develop. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses that make up almost 90 percent of the economy rose to 50.1 from 48.7 in November, according to the Tempe, Arizona-based group. Fifty [...]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said removing the central bank from bank supervision and tampering with its political independence would “seriously impair” economic stability in the U.S. “A number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions,” the Fed Chairman said in [...]