Market information Friday October 30th 2015

Yesterday, UBS published a report in which it warns for bubbles in the housing markets of important financial centers worldwide. Especially the housing markets in Hong Kong and London appear to be substantially overvalued. In Amsterdam, real house prices fell by 25% between 2008 and 2013. From then on house prices increased 11%, while income stagnated.

Yesterday, the United States Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annualized rate of 1.5% in the third quarter of 2015, compared to an annualized 3.9% growth in the second quarter. The slowdown in economic growth is a result of businesses reducing their investments in inventory.

According to Statistics Netherlands, the number of households with an ‘underwater’ mortgage has decreased last year by 84,000 to almost 1.4 million in early 2015. That is almost 32% of all Dutch households owning a home. A mortgage is considered to be ‘underwater’ if the market value of the property is lower than the outstanding mortgage. It is the first time since the start of the economic crisis in 2008 that the number of households with underwater mortgages has decreased.

The 6M Euribor remained unchanged at 0.01%. The 10Y Swap increased by 7 basis points to 0.92%.

In the attachment, today’s market data on money and capital market rates as well as other rates are presented. For more history of these rates or other rates feel free to ask: update@zanders.eu.