Business

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In the late 1400s, the city-states of Italy were among most dominant powers in the world.

Most of the city-states had abandoned the feudal system that persisted across Europe.

So Italy was one of the only places on the continent where anyone, including foreigners, could work hard, take risks, and become wealthy.

People could start businesses and own private property– revolutionary concepts in the 1400s.

One week after Freddie Mac chief economist Sean Becketti warned that "if rates continue their upward trend, expect mortgage activity to be significantly subdued in 2017", mortgage rates continued their upward trend. According to the latest update from the mortgage giant, the 30-year fixed reached 31-month highs, touching level not seen since April 2014 in the week after the Fed hiked its interest rate for the second time in the past decade.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

I have written over the last couple of months the market was likely to rally into the end of the year as portfolio managers, hedge, and pension funds chased performance and “window dressed” portfolios for year-end reporting purposes. As I noted in this past weekend’s missive:

Via ConvergEx's Nicholas Colas,

This last Morning Markets Briefing of 2016 is our quarterly look at “Off the Grid” economic indicators. 

 

Submitted by Eric Bush via Gavekal Capital blog,

The Fed has communicated that the plan for 2017 includes three rate hikes. The market isn’t quite buying into that plan yet.

According to Bloomberg’s WIRP function, the first meeting with over a 50% chance of a rate hike isn’t until the June FOMC meeting (73% probability of a hike).