Daily News 2/11/2015

February 11, 2015

Wednesday – February 11

A recent poll of 82 economists revealed that the U.S. economy is expected to record its best performance in 10 years due to an improving job market, which should increase consumer demand for goods and services. The poll showed that the economy should grow by 3.2% in 2015, which would be the fastest since 2005. However, the results did show that slower growth across the globe was the biggest headwind to U.S. growth. Most of the economists did say that the Federal Reserve will most likely raise interest rates either by mid-year or later in 2015.

Robust sales of iPads, iPhones, iPods and Macs have propelled sales at Apple through the roof in recent years, as consumers continue to rack up sales for the company. Apple’s Stock price closed at an all-time high yesterday of $122, which has pushed the market capitalization of the popular company to just above $700 billion, a record here in the U.S. No other company in the history of this country has ever reached such lofty levels. The $700 billion is far above the second most capitalized company in the U.S., Exxon Mobile, which is around $380 billion. Market capitalization is calculated by taking the amount of outstanding shares and multiplying it by the current share price.

Despite historically low interest rates for home loans, mortgage applications fell in the latest week, due to a slight increase in home loan rates from the previous week. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Market Composite Index, a measure of total loan application volume, fell by 9% last week. The refinance index decreased 10%, while the purchase index was lower by 7%. Fixed rates for 30-year conventional home loans rose to 3.84%, up from 3.79% in the previous week. The survey covers over 75% of U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA.