Daily Financial News - Mortgage | Real Estate | Stock Market

The Week Ahead: Busy Week for Housing, Earnings - Last Week saw equities hit 12-month highs across the globe, including in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Russia, Europe, England, Brazil and of course the US. The Dow hit the 10,000 mark mid-week but closed under that psychological threshold on Friday. The S&P 500 gained 1.5% overall, pushing the gains since early March to an astonishing 59.4%. Meantime, WTI crude oil has jumped 120% from its February low of $34 per barrel. A 2009 peak was hit last week as it rose 9.4% $78.53. Never mind 2009 highs, Spot Gold hit an all-time high at $1,070.40 per ounce last Wednesday, though on Sunday night it had fallen to $1049.95.

Key Q3 Earnings Reports This Week:

Texas Instruments, Apple (Monday); Caterpillar, Yahoo, Pfizer (Tuesday); Boeing, Wells Fargo, eBay, Freeport (Wednesday); UPS, 3M (Thursday); Microsoft (Friday).

Key Events This Week:

Monday:  Homebuilder Sentiment survey from the National Association of Home Builders

Tuesday: Charles Plosser, President of the Philly Fed, speaks on monetary policy to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research in Palo Alto, California.

Wednsday: Eric Rosengren, President of the Boston Fed, speaks on regulatory and monetary policy as he opens the bank’s annual Cape Cod economic conference in Chatham, Massachusetts.

Thursday: Eric Rosengren, President of the Boston Fed, speaks at the bank’s annual Cape Cod conference for the second day. He will Deiver a paper on whether financial stability should be added to the Fed’s objective.

Friday: Donald Kohn, Vice Chairman of the Fed, speaks in a panel discussion on international perspectives, at the Boston Fed's annual conference in Cape Cod.

Stocks Off the Lows of the Day - Equities opened lower this morning following disappointing earnings results from Bank of America, a losses were extended into the session when it was reported that consumer sentiment took a dip in the first two weeks of October, suggesting retail sales in the holiday period could be weaker than forecasts assumed. After being down more than 1.00% in the lunch hour, stocks were making a small comeback from the lows of the day.