Honduran Coup, Jump In Mortgage Rates

News That Moves Markets
 
RCM Comment: In a world seemingly full of bad news, during a news cycle full of Madoff, Iran and North Korea, I thought you could use a little lift. I thought you would appreciate a story where good triumphs over evil and where a constitution is protected from a despotic leader. Finally, the people of a democratic, capitalistic country are able to defend their rights and avoid being raped and pillaged by another would be Hugo Chavez. Enjoy the read as this chance doesn’t come around often…
 
Honduran President is ousted in coup – NY Times
NY Times reports President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was ousted by the army on Sunday, capping months of tensions over his efforts to lift presidential term limits. In the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war, soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, early in the morning, disarming the presidential guard, waking Mr. Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica. Mr. Zelaya, a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, angrily denounced the coup as illegal. “I am the president of Honduras,” he insisted. Later Sunday the Honduran Congress voted him out of office, replacing him with the president of Congress, Roberto Micheletti. The military offered no public explanation for its actions, but the Supreme Court issued a statement saying that the military had acted to defend the law against “those who had publicly spoken out and acted against the Constitution’s provisions.”
RCM Comment: O.K. back to business as usual where the news usually is not good. The increase in mortgage rates is certainly something to keep an eye on for obvious reasons…

Global Money Trends-
Also threatening to undermine the green-shoots rally is the upward surge in the 30-year fixed mortgage loan rate to an average 5.42% in June, up from 4.78% in April, dealing a fresh blow to the housing market. The surge in mortgage rates surprised the Fed, since the central bank thought it could keep mortgage rates locked below 5%, by pledging to buy $1.1-trillion of mortgage bonds from April through the end of August.

The latest 1% jump in mortgage rates comes at a time when foreclosure filings in the US surpassed 300,000 for a third straight month in May and may hit a record 1.8-million by the first half of the year, RealtyTrac said.

About Bret Rosenthal

Interpreting the news that moves markets. Principal of RCM, LLC, and founding partner of the Fortune's Favor Family of Funds
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