Travis's Blog

Hello Friends, I always love waking up to chaos in the market first thing Monday mornings. I drive my wife nuts when I turn on the TV at 445 and there is headline news like there was this morning with our major investment company shakeups. Please watch the video for more detail as it is a long explanation but basically the Feds stepped in this weekend as moderators to try and save investment bank giants, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch on the verge of collapse. Apparently Bank of America found Merrill Lynch to be the more stable of the two and purchased ML for $50 billion dollars. This is a very interesting turn of events knowing B of A just purchased the failing mortgage giant, Countrywide earlier this year. A lot of analysts are curious to know how B of A is confident in the stability of their assets and reserves when the losses are still rolling. The silver lining in this dark cloud is that mortgage backed securities loved this news. MBS' are up 75 basis points this morning, add that to the gains from last week after the Freddie and Fannie take over, we are up nearly 200 basis points. That equals 2 discount points or $6000 on a $300,000 loan, so big numbers. We are seeing 3 1/2 year lows now for mortgage rates. Between the housing price adjustment in or communities and mortgage rates at all time lows, tip for the day. :) buy, buy, buy! Be Blessed! Travis