Connecting Debt in Greece to the U.S. Housing Market

The Economist points out that fear of the Greek debt crisis spreading across Europe has many repercussions, including increasing investors' skepticism about the global recovery. In recent weeks, investors have been backing out of not only Greece's debt but the debt of other European countries and, in turn, buying U.S. government bonds. This has caused subsequent downward pressure on interest rates in the U.S., pushing mortgage rates to new lows. In fact, the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly refinance index (available in FactSet Economics) has surged 63% since early April in response to the dip in mortgage rates. Ironically, it seems that the turmoil in Europe is helping to boost the recovering U.S. housing market.

Using the data available on FactSet Economics, you can draw links between a variety of data sources in order to support a particular hypothesis or idea. For example, to illustrate the relationship between European debt and the U.S. housing market, we combined information from four different datasets.

FactSet Economics lets you build the supporting details for theories you propose or read about in the news. Sara Potter, Associate Director of Market Analysis at FactSet, comments that "It's easy to see this far-reaching connection using FactSet Economics. You can see in the charts below that the financial turmoil in Greece is having a direct impact on interest rates in the U.S."

FactSet Economics provides an extensive range of series data that is reliably and frequently updated.

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