Good Monday morning from your Hometown Lender,

There is no economic data to share today.

China (if you are watching), cut their rate by .10%. I don’t see that impacting markets much 😊. Bonds are treading water. With no data, politics are the main driver. President Biden has left the building. Now maybe/likely VP Harris is going to be the democratic nominee. Bonds are under a little pressure today. Concerns about the carrying cost of the trillions in debt we have (the rest of the world is no better off) are becoming realized. We are issuing more debt this week and month and there may be less of an appetite in the markets to swallow it.

This week does have a lot of data with PMI, GDP, and PCE, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge on Friday.

The Fed meeting is just two days after that. That PCE report will go a long way to solidifying the Fed one way or another. Either the report comes in at or below estimates, which gives the Fed freedom to act whenever they are ready or it comes in higher and we are on hold. I am currently in the corner that it will come in below estimates but do expect rates to continue to leak sideways until the report.

This was a bit of a surprise.

The average cost of selling a house rose to $54,616 this year, according to a Clever Real Estate survey of 1,014 people who sold their homes over the previous two years. But sales commissions paid to the sellers’ and buyers’ agents added up to $21,603 — less than half of the seller’s total cost. The rest of the roughly $33,000 was eaten up by closing costs, repairs/improvements, concessions to the buyer, marketing, moving fees and staging costs.

Stay safe and make today great!