Carpe ver! Seize the spring and clean up your budget!
(a helpful list for your newsletters and blogs)
For U.S. housing, a new collapse...
“A lot of people may be carried out feet first before the house is worth what they paid for it.” Another reminder of how fortunate Canadians are to have maintained a strong housing market.
· TSX -57.81 to 14,087.18 as energy and mining stocks fell alongside prices for oil and gold amid a huge wall of worry with ongoing serious challenges to the global economy, including Japan ’s struggle to contain a nuclear crisis caused by the Mar. 11 earthquake, Portugal’s unresolved financial problems and uprisings in the Middle East.
· DOW +85.54 to 12,170.56 rose on stronger corporate earnings and hopes that the job market may be improving as the Labor Department said fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating that employers could be expanding their work forces.
· Dollar +.47c to 102.44c USD
· Oil -$.15 to $105.60USD per barrel amid a surprise new oil windfall tax in Britain. The British government plans to levy a new tax on oil companies’ profits worth two billion pounds ($3.2 billion) and in return will lower the country’s gas tax by a penny a litre
· Gold -$3.10 to $1434.90 per ounce
· Canadian 5 yr bond yields markets +.03bps to 2.61. The spread (based on the MERIX 5 yr rate published rate of 4.04%) is at the centre of the comfort zone at 1.43.
(courtesy of Barb Morgan, DBD Ontario Southwest)
