What We're Hearing

News website later today: http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/. Meanwhile, stocks soared on Thursday after positive earnings by Ford Motor company and a host of other firms. Of course, Thursday evening was a different matter when software giant Microsoft reported a 29% drop in sales of its Windows software. Revenue was $13.1 billion, a 17% drop from the year-ago quarter. What does all this have to do with mortgages? Unless companies such as Ford and Microsoft (the latter of which still earned a nice profit) start hiring full-time workers, residential loan delinquencies will keep going up. It's as simple as that. Keep in mind that Ford only had a good quarter because it restructured its debt. It's not like auto sales are booming. Companies cannot keep cutting costs and workers forever. Terrific stock market gains are nice but won't last forever which brings me to the case of banks. Commercial banks with securities affiliates are posting strong gains because of - you got it - recent stock market gains. Unless these stock gains continue, earnings won't be so pretty...