Gleanings From Crescendo Interactive—February 21, 2012

Editor’s Note

Members of Congress expect the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 to be the last major tax bill until the November election. Democratic negotiators proposed including the “tax extenders” in the bill but they were not in the final version. While the tax extenders have been passed with dates retroactive to January 1, donors who hope to use the Charitable IRA Rollover for 2012 may delay taking required minimum distributions until the end of November.

Applicable Federal Rate of 1.4% for February.

Stocks

The Dow started the week at 12,801 and closed at 12,950. The S&P started the week at 1,343 and ended at 1,361. The NASDAQ started the week at 2,904 and finished at 2,952.

Bonds

In Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) mortgage rates remained unchanged from the previous report. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) has been at its all-time low for the past three weeks and has stayed below 4.00% for the past 11 weeks.

The 30-year FRM remained unchanged over the past week, remaining at 3.16%. During the same period last year, the average 15-year FRM rate was 4.27%.

The money market fund finished this week at 0.50%. The 1-year CD finished at 0.60%.