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Savings and CD rates continue their slow glide to oblivion while 30-year mortgage rates climbed above 5% for the first time since October.

Every now and then the mainstream media will do an article on the hatchet job that the Fed has done on the savers of this country. Today they printed one such article.

Today was a full day of news of the economy, but not a lot of changes in the bond markets.

Charge cards, plastic that allows you to charge goods and services and then pay the balance in full every month, are becoming more popular again. Are they the way to go over debit cards for the responsible spender?

GDP for the third quarter of 2009 was revised down from 2.8% to 2.2% today. That was a greater drop than many economists forecast (aren't economists like meteorologists?). As the graphs below show, durable goods orders led the way and powering durable goods gains were increased in auto sales.

The Treasury yield curve, which measures the rate difference between shorter and longer term Treasury securities reached its steepest this morning. A steep yield curve is usually a sign of an economic recovery and an increase in inflation.

Savings rates stayed steady at 1.57% APY last week. 1-year CD rates also stayed flat at 1.96% APY. This marks the first time in months that both savings and 1-year CD rates have not dropped. What's even more interesting, is that they held while 3-year and 5-year rates dropped considerably. Three-year rates dropped by 8 basis points from 2.72% APY to 2.64% APY while 5-year CDs dropped from 3.26% APY to 3.21% APY.

In order to trade in the stock market, one doesn't have to know all of the technical details in buying and selling stocks, in most cases, a basic understanding of the stock market is more than enough. But due to the amount of information that one has to consider, stock trading requires a lot of time and effort in order to become a profitable activity. Thanks to technology, the transfer and retrieval of such information is so much easier.

Much of stock market traders` and investors` time is spent trying to predict what the market will do in the next few days to months. However, the process is not all speculative guessing. If one pays close attention, the market will actually indicate which way it is going. Learning to read the signs of the market takes a little time and patience but the rewards will be great.

If you are someone who is tired of losing money on the stock market or you are still in search for that perfect stock that is going to produce the results that you want, you`ll be happy to know that there is a way. That way is through monitoring the trend lines.

Stock screening software can do in a nanosecond what it would have taken you days to do in the past. Screening stocks according to set criteria with a view to assessing their future potential for profit.

Here are the results from the much anticipated SIFMA 2010 Municipal Issuance Survey.

Stocks slip and treasuries gain back some of their losses for the year. It still seems to be premature to declare the recession is over, however you cannot deny the good economic data that has come out this week.