Any day now the President is expected to sign into law the Housing and Recovery Act of 2008. There are big changes in store with the passage of this act, changes which have the potential for sweeping effects across the mortgage and real estate industries.
Is it possible that some of the collapses and near misses in the
financial markets over the last six months will ultimately be tied to a
few sick and/or greedy people who have used rumors and
innuendo to manipulate the market? Government regulators
are looking at such a scenario starting with the failure of Bear Stearns
in March of this year.
The S&P Case-Shiller U.S. home price index continued
to deteriorate in May as the 20-city composite index posted a record
annual decline of 15.8%. The Case-Shiller index has fallen every month
since peaking in July 2006.
Consumer confidence for July and the S&P/Case-
Shiller’s home price index for May will be the main focus of
Tuesday’s economic events with no major macroeconomic releases expected
for Canada. Across the Atlantic, market participants will also be looking
out for preliminary results of German CPI for July.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for
July improved to 51.9 in Tuesday’s report, against expectations
of a slight decline to 50.0. Some economists were expecting such an
improvement following the upward revisions in the Reuters/U of Michigan
sentiment index last week, which bumped up to 61.2 from the preliminary
56.6 level.