Rates tick higher as housing demand grows

0:00Welcome to Seeking Alphas Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. We finally made it to Friday. Today is March 27. I'm Julie Morgan. The Chief Economist at Freddie Mac says the housing market continues to show gradual improvements compared to a year ago amid recent rate volatility. Sam Cater noted that purchase and refinance applications are up year over year and rates remain lower than last year. But rates have increased week over week. The latest Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Survey showed 30 year fixed rate mortgages average 6.38% as of yesterday, March 26th, up from 6.22% last week, but below 6.65% in the same period a year ago. 15 year fixed rate mortgages average 5.75% up from 5.54% last week and down from 5.89% a

1:03year ago. Your next and Netflix bill will be higher. Netflix is raising the price of all its subscription plans by at least a dollar. The company telegraphed the increase during its earnings call in January. Netflix says it needs the extra money to help pay for the company's higher content budget expected to rise to $20 billion this year. That's a $2 billion increase. This includes a slate of live events including the World Baseball Classic in Japan, podcasts, and a new license deal with Sony. Effective immediately, a standard plan will cost you a dollar more. Standard with no ads will cost you $2 more and the same is true for a premium plan. The company also raised its extra member fee by a dollar. Netflix last raised its subscription fees in January of 2025. President Trump says he plans to sign an order to pay transportation security administration officers immediately.

2:05This comes at the same time the Senate passed legislation to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, but that bill still needs approval from the House and a signature from the president. The action comes amid a week's long funding standoff over DHS, which oversees the TSA. The prolonged partial government shutdown has disrupted airport security leading to staffing shortages and longer wait times. According to a senior administration official, the payments will be funded using money from Trump's 2025 tax and spending bill. Now for a look at a few other articles that are trending, President Trump's signature will appear on U.S. currency a first for a sitting president. Open AI's ad pilot crosses $100 million in annualized revenue in just six weeks. And the Pentagon is reportedly weighing, sending up to 10,000 more troops to the Middle East. President Trump has extended a pause on U.S. strikes targeting Iran's energy infrastructure,

3:10pushing the deadline to the 6th of April, as diplomatic efforts continue between Washington and Tehran. So how are markets reacting? Dow S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the green. Crude oil is up 1.3% at $95 a barrel. Bitcoin is down 1.6% at $67,000. Gold is up 1.4% at $44.42. The footsie 100 is down 0.4% and the tax is down 1%. Unity software is on our list of the biggest movers of the day-prey market. You is up 15% after the company raised its fiscal Q1 outlook. And on today's economic calendar at 10am consumer sentiment. That's it for today's Wall Street breakfast. Thanks for listening! To take full advantage of Seeking Alpha with coverage on significant stocks and ETFs, become a premium subscriber.

4:10Check out SeekingAlpha.com slash subscriptions. I'm your host Julie Morgan. Go out and make it a great day!