Page 9 - Maxwell Point News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The financial press seems enthralled with the business cycle. Expansion, contraction, rates and stocks up, rates and stocks down. Right now they’re all stumbling over themselves looking for signs of a recession. Recessions, of course, tend to lower rates since the demand for credit drops. European growth projections are poor. No one really knows what is going on in China. In the United States, the Federal Reserve has pushed the Fed Funds rate (the interest rate at which banks and credit unions lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight) from near 0 percent to what ...

Here in Louisville, at AgFirst’s Correspondent Lending Conference, much of the discussion involves going after builder business (“focusing on how fast they get paid so they can pay their subs”), rural programs (“know how to communicate with your clients, or else”), top producer success (“treat your processor like royalty, and fill out the information correctly in the first place,” “set boundaries,” “sell yourself, not rates”) and agriculture. In ag news, the amount of butter the U.S. has in cold storage is down 22 per...

The big news in the Chrisman household is my cat Myrtle being offered a big signing bonus by the family next door. Apparently, word of her mousing prowess has spread. Myrtle’s tight-lipped on the details, but I assume it involves line-caught halibut and wild salmon tidbits. When I brought it up, she glared at me as if to say, “Hey, it’s a free market.” At 10, Myrtle’s no spring chicken, and I told her that she’d better think long and hard about it since there seem to be fewer mice around to catch. (Stay tuned!) Lenders are seeing fewer loans to origina...

Tip-jar humor seen here in Chicago at a coffee shop: “Afraid of Change? Leave It Here.” Sure recessions typically mean lower rates, but are you okay waiting until that happens? TransUnion tells us that 196 million people in the United States use credit cards. Credit cards can be a valuable tool but for nearly everyone who keeps a balance on them, their rates are moving higher. On the flip side, here’s a way to add a little value to your clients. Thank you to Cory Tona who sent, “At Hometown, we have to send uncashed checks to the state of CA. The state holds them fo...

Today is World Breast Cancer Research Day, a global recognition of the life-changing research (past, present, and future) to end breast cancer. That would be nice. What is also nice, so far, is the lack of named storms in the Southeast. Lenders, and servicers, and of course homeowners, in the Southeast dread “hurricane season.” Back in May, NOAA's outlook for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 to November 30) called for “above normal” storm activity. But the prediction, like interest rate predictions, has so far been wrong, and it has been surprising...