About Muscogee County, GA

Bond prices rose today, sending 30-year bonds up a point, after data showed signs of weakness in underlying retail sales and regional manufacturing.

U.S. retail sales rose a brisk 1.4% last month but were much less impressive once autos were stripped out, while September's data was revised to show a larger drop overall than earlier reported. Combined with a separate report showing much weaker growth than was expected in New York State manufacturing, the data supported earlier bond market gains, which came in sympathy will rallying euro zone government debt.
The Empire State manufacturing data came in weaker than expected. It will be volatile, a choppy ride as we recover. The Treasury market had seen a bid from early morning and has rallied on this news.

The retail sales data was definitely positive for October, but the revision for the prior month neutralizes the impact. I think we are moving in the right direction, but it's not a straight line higher. in the short term Rates will likely fall .125% - .25%

Monday we saw the equity markets rally nicely, and in addition many investors had intra-day price improvements. Helping the interest rate markets was a record $40 billion 3-yr Treasury auction that went well. The 3-year note auction gave investors a yield of 1.435%, with a bid/cover ratio of 3.33 - much better than average. Today we have $25 billion of 10-yr Treasury notes to wade through, with no economic news, but some carry through from yesterday puts out current 10-yr at 3.45% and mortgage prices better between .125 and .250.

But... why are bonds and stocks both doing well? Didn't we just learn that the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% and reached the highest level since 1983? The rate reflects the fact that the number of people unemployed is increasing, and unemployed people are notorious about not being able to pay their mortgage and, obviously, having their "consumer confidence" be low. And when confidence is low, those flat screen TV's don't fly off the shelves. If the economy is about to rebound, as the stock market thinks, then why is the Fed expected to keep low rates for an extended period of time? Many believe that the outlook for growth, or at least a strong recovery, is grim: there is just too much weakness underlying the economy for the Fed to move to higher rates as inflation is not a worry at the moment.
So place your money wisely, since something has to give.

Comment here or email your questions to cmcdonald@wrstarkey.com

Columbus Ga News: The Columbus High School Blue Devils have won the first GHSA Class AAA title. The entire team rallied around pitcher Chandler Padgett to defeat Northside High School and claim the girls softball championship at South Commons in Columbus Ga. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE LADY BLUE DEVILS, the staff, and the student body at Columbus High.

Realtor Columbus Ga

Some of the best Columbus Ga real estate, is located along the banks of the Chattahoochee River. This past weekend some 10,000 volunteers showed up, to clean up. The Help the Hooch program has turned into a river, lakes, streams and local parks clean up party. Columbus Ga, Fort Benning and Phenix City are much cleaner thanks to soldiers, girl scouts, cub scouts, school kids, senior groups and environmentally concientious volunteers.
Local divers will continue with the annual clean up in a couple of weeks when the Chattahoochee River recedes to normal levels. Highwaters concerned Local Organizers who took special precautions along the river. Parts of the Columbus Ga, fort Benning River Walk were closed to volunteers. All in all the residents of the area ususally collect 100,000 pounds of litter, many of the volunteers were surprised by the staggering amounts of trash.
When Saturdays clean up ended, volunteers were treated to a thank you party complete with food and entertainment at Golden Park. The park is located at the end of Broadway in Downtown Columbus along the Chattahoochee River.

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Columbus Ga, Fort Benning News: Turner construction of Huntsville Al. has been awarded a 335 million dollar bid to build the new hospital at Fort Benning. The new facility will be nearly 750,000 square feet in size and will replace Martin Army Hospital. The soldiers and retirees at Fort Benning will have a first class health care facility when the construction is completed approximately 3 years from now.