Friday Market Wrapup - December 1, 2008: Forced Hands

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December 1, 2008 Forced Hands By Benjamin Shepherd Despite a steady flow of weak economic data, equity markets turned out a strong performance, with last week being the best for the S&P 500 since 1974. But November was still a down month overall, with all three indexes posting losses.  The S&P 500 finished last week up 12 percent, though it was down 7.4 percent on the month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 9.7 percent over the holiday-shortened week but lost 5.3 percent in November. And the Nasdaq Composite rose 11 percent for the week but shed 10.8 percent for the month.  Last Tuesday, the Federal Reserve announced plans to buy more than half a trillion dollars of mortgage debt. The Fed will purchase up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities and $100 billion in direct debt of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), as well as in Federal Home Loan Banks.   The goal is to encourage lending and to keep rates low, and the plan seems to be having the desired effect. First thing Tuesday morning the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was almost 6.4 percent, but within hours it had fallen to an average of 5.5 percent. That was the biggest one-day drop in rates in seven years.  That will do little good for distressed homeowners hoping to refinance their way out of trouble, though plunging home values over the past year have left many with loan-to-value ratios too high to qualify for refinancing. Still, it will encourage qualified borrowers to refinance, freeing up more cash for other spending, and should help bring more buyers into the market.  Think you need to take costly drugs to lower your blood pressure ? Think again ! ! If you've got high blood pressure, your doctor's probably told you to take drugs to control it for the rest of your life. But not only are these medications often loaded with dangerous side effects, your average out-of-pocket cost can run as high as $1,116 a year! Now there's a safer, less costly way to drop your blood pressure to normal.   Plus you're guaranteed to see results in as little as 4 to 7 weeks ! This new blood pressure breakthrough is 100% natural, yet it's NOT a supplement.  It's so effective, over 90% of people who use it are able to drop their blood pressure to normal.   What's more, at least 60% of those using medication to control hypertension are able to cut back on or get off drugs for good ! Find out why The Harvard Heart Letter in their December 2006 issue reports this proven therapy "has been shown to lower blood pressure as much as a first-line anti-hypertension drug" and "may be money well-spent..." It works so well, a growing number of doctors and cardiologists now recommend this therapy to patients and use it to lower their own blood pressure ! Get the full scoop on this breakthrough solution right now. It's just one click away... The other bit of news which helped spur last weeks performance was the bailout of Citigroup (NYSE: C) The irony of the situation is that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sparked the very action he’d hoped to avoid. Click here to continue reading

Friday Market Wrapup is a weekly e-zine written by Ben Shepherd and published by KCI Communications, Inc. Mr. Shepherd is research editor for Personal Finance. Change e-mail preferences here | Contact Us Copyright 2008 KCI Communications, Inc. 7600A Leesburg Pike West Building, Suite 300 Falls Church, VA 22043