Stock Market.

[harrolldean]

stock market crashes are ok. they always come back up. all it really means are "stocks are on clearance". buy, buy, buy. then next week, when it recovers, you'll be banking!

i sure wish we could get 5% fixed mortgages here in tx... I can only find 6.3.

[Yahooligan]

Originally Posted by tholmes

Mortgage companies generally base their rates off of the 10 year note, which was effected by the interest rate cut. If you finance or refi with a mortgage company that does use that as their basis for their prime, then it can lower your rate.

I'd be loving life if I could get 5% fixed for 30, that would cut about $400 off my payment compared to the 6.875% I'm at right now.

[skyhammer]

Originally Posted by walleeme

And how in the hell is this supposed to hurt the ordinary average guy? Maybe some guy gets stuck in a margin call, but really? It won't hurt the ordinary guys. We don't have schit in there anyway and probably never will.

I assume you are being serious and must have slept through high school.
Do you remember hearing about the Great Depression and stock market crash of 1929?
The results of the crash changed the world for ever. It resulted in the ruining the lives and the death of millions, was largely responsible for WWII, the cold war and the eventual rise of the U.S being the most powerful nation in the world.
In 1929, the U.S was still primarily an agrarian society and most folks had never even heard of the stock market. Yet, when the crash occurred unemployment soared to over 25% and millions were put out of their homes, banks closed and food lines appeared everywhere.
This soon spread world wide with stock market crashes everywhere, for example, In the U.S. stocks were down 50%, Australia down 41.8%, Canada down 22.5%, Hong Kong down 45.8% England down 26.4%.
When the stock market crashes, companies can no longer pay their employees, expand their business,plus since people have less money they don't buy products, a stock market crash has a cascading effect.
Remember that most peoples paychecks come from those that invest in the stock market. The fact is those that don't have money in stock market are usually hit the hardest by a market decline.That is why you should be concerned about the stock market even if you don't have money directly invested in it.
On a more positive note, what may have happened today, was historically a rather minor event.A 500 point decline is only about 4%, in 1987 we lost 22.6% in one day. The market would have had to drop some 2500 points today to equal what happened in 1987.

[37L1]

The Market did not lose 500 points at closing thanks to the Fed lowering the Prime Lending Rate 3/4%. It was down about 128 points after opening down 450.

[helomech]

Originally Posted by rrumaner

I am about to refinance my mortgage from 5.75 down to 5.00 thanks to this bad news. That alone will save me over $300 a month. So it is not all bad news.

Thanks to Hurricane Rita, and Katrina I got a 29 year mortgage at 2.67%. I had a rate of 6% before I got approved for the SBA loan. I will only be paying around 50k in interest over 30 years.