Foreclosures | Mortgages | Financing
More consumers resorted to bankruptcy last month than in the first month of the year, though a year-over-year decline was reported.
Including consumers and businesses, 56,694 new bankruptcy filings were made during February, increasing from 54,619 the prior month.
But the number of new cases that were filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Courts were down from February 2017, when the total was an upwardly revised 58,392.
From:: Financing
President Donald Trump pardoned a Navy sailor who took photographs of the classified areas of a nuclear submarine, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Friday. Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty to taking photos of the USS Alexandria’s propulsion system while working in its engine room in 2009. Saucier has served a 12-month sentence and Sanders said Trump appreciated his service to the country.
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From:: Stock Market News
Oil prices rallied Friday to score a gain for the week, as the potential for a meeting between the U.S. president and North Korea’s leader helped to ease some geopolitical risk in the market. Data revealing the first weekly decline in seven weeks in the number of active U.S. oil rigs also contributed to the rise in prices. April WTI crude added $1.92, or 3.2%, to settle at $62.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose roughly 1.3% for the week.
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From:: Stock Market News
An improvement in weekly purchase-money business wasn’t enough to offset a drop in refinances. Meantime, the share of activity for loans to veterans fell to the lowest level in seven months.
A 3 percent decline from one week previous was recorded the Mortgage Daily U.S. Mortgage Market Index for the week ended March 9. No seasonal adjustments were made.
Compared to one year previous, the index — a gauge of upcoming home-loan originations based on average per-user rate-lock volume by clients of OpenClose — sank 14 percent.
From:: Financing
President Donald Trump wants to see “concrete steps and concrete actions” by North Korea before meeting leader Kim Jong Un, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday. Thursday, a senior South Korean official said the meeting could be held by May, but Sanders said a time and place “have not yet been determined.” The U.S. is pressing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
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From:: Stock Market News
Former drug-company executive Martin Shkreli on Friday was sentenced to 7 years in prison, according to media reports. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $75,000 in addition to the more than $7 million he previously had been ordered to forfeit. Shkreli was convicted in August of defrauding hedge-fund investors and earlier this week prosecutors had asked for a sentence of at least 15 years, saying he was unrepentant. Shkreli’s lawyers had asked for a sentence of less than two years. He first came to fame for buying the rights to a life-saving drug and then immediately raising the price to $750 a pill from $13.50.
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From:: Stock Market News
The S&P 500 index broke above its 50-day moving average in intraday trade on Friday, underlining an updraft for stocks that had sunk by 10% from a recent peak early last month. Most recently, the S&P 500 was up 38 points, or 1.4%, at 2,777, surging above its 50-day MA at 2,741.70, according to FactSet data. Market technicians pay attention to moving averages to help assess bullish and bearish momentum in an asset. The climb for the broad-market benchmark comes amid a better-than-expected jobs report for February, which helped to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average up by 372 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index to its first intraday record since slipping into correction territory, defined by many as a fall of at least 10% from a recent peak on Jan. 26. All three equity benchmarks have recovered considerably since that late-January low, with the Dow about 5% from its all-time high and the S&P 500 just about 3.4% from its record.
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From:: Stock Market News
Gold prices edged higher Friday, settling with a gain of a few cents on the week as disappointing growth in U.S. wages tempered pressure from a jump in domestic jobs. The benchmark U.S. dollar index , meanwhile, traded slightly lower for the session, but held onto a modest rise for the week-failing to offer a strong directional cue for gold. April gold climbed $2.30, or 0.2%, to settle at $1,324 an ounce, up roughly 60 cents from the week-ago finish.
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From:: Stock Market News
The manager of a mortgage branch that was ordered to temporarily shut down by Illinois regulators is blaming his employees for setting him up.
A cease-and-desist order was issued by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation Division of Banking against Diamond Residential Mortgage Corp.
The order, signed Wednesday, requires a Diamond branch in Springfield, Missouri, to cease all licensable activity from the branch office.
From:: Financing
The S&P 500 index broke above its 50-day moving average in intraday trade on Friday, underlining an updraft for stocks that had sunk by 10% from a recent peak early last month. Most recently, the S&P 500 was up 37 points, or 1.4%, at 2,775, surging above its 50-day MA at 2,741.70, according to FactSet data. Market technicians pay attention to moving averages to help assess bullish and bearish momentum in an asset. The climb for the broad-market benchmark comes amid a better-than-expected jobs report for February, which helped to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average up by more than 300 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index to its first intraday record since slipping into correction territory, defined by many as a fall of at least 10% from a recent peak on Jan. 26. All three equity benchmarks have recovered considerably since that late-January low, with the Dow about 5% from its all-time high and the S&P 500 just about 3.4% from its record.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
From:: Stock Market News