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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Post-Crash Index-Moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (33554)	8/8/2011 2:17:27 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 119362

DOW under 11,000 for the 2nd time today. -480 and turning south.

To: Les H who wrote (33554)	8/8/2011 2:44:05 PM
From: Les H	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 119362

Ratings agency Moody’s Investor Service on Monday warned it might also downgrade the US government’s credit rating if its planned measures to reduce its budget deficit turned out to be not “credible” after all. In his first comments after the move by rival rating agency S&P, Moody’s analyst Steven Hess sounded a note of caution about Moody’s rating of the US, repeating that the August 2 plan to cut deficits by $2.1 trillion was positive for the US credit standing, but not enough to keep its rating on a stable outlook. Moody’s had earlier put the US on “review for downgrade” on July 13 before removing the ratings watch and affirming the AAA rating on August 2, after the US Congress passed a measure cutting the fiscal deficit and raising the statutory borrowing limit. “If the process for further deficit reduction that is included in the budget control act produces results that are not really credible, that combined with the economic performance could potentially cause an early move on the rating,” Hess told Reuters in an interview. Even the $917bn in savings that have already been agreed by Republicans and Democrats are not guaranteed in the long term, Hess said. Those savings come mostly from slowing the growth of the discretionary programs that Congress approves annually, covering everything from the military to food inspection. “One can have doubts about it,” he said. “We certainly believe that it’s credible in the near term but we can have doubts about its enforceability over the long term because future Congress can always change that.” If the United States manages to keep its AAA rating until the end of 2012, Moody’s will likely take into account how the government will handle the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts to make a decision on the AAA rating, currently under a negative outlook. fin24.com

To: Les H who wrote (33554)	10/21/2011 6:54:44 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 119362

After a Surprise Uptick, AIA’s Architectural Billings Index Takes a Dive Once More By Steve Delahoyde on October 20, 2011 7:01 AM If you thought the massive jump in last month’s Architectural Billings Index meant the recession was now over and it would be nothing but champagne wishes and caviar dreams from here on out, then you clearly haven’t been watching the roller coaster that is the American Institute of Architects‘ monthly report closely enough. After a surprising and hopeful six point leap up to near pre-financial collapse numbers, the Index took a near-equal tumble in the opposite direction, down to 46.9 (anything above 50 indicates an increase in billings and, more vaguely, the general health of the industry). Per usual, it was the AIA’s man of numbers who had to break the sobering news very soberly: “It appears that the positive conditions seen last month were more of an aberration,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “The economy is weak enough at present that design activity is bouncing around more than usual; one strong month can be followed by a weak one. The economy needs to be stronger to generate sustained growth in design activity.” mediabistro.com