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NEW YORK -- While dangerous pollutants still threaten the health of millions of Americans, the United States has made great strides in clearing the air, according to the American Lung Association.
In its annual State of the Air 2012 report, the organization said that between 2001 and 2010, ozone levels dropped 13 percent, year-round particle pollution declined 24 percent and short-term particle pollution 28 percent -- thanks to the Clean Air Act.
Particle pollution includes things like dust, metals, smoke, exhaust, and acids like nitrates and sulfates. Ozone, meanwhile, is created when a chemical or fossil fuel, like coal or gasoline, is partially burned and the unburned hydrocarbons, when combined with ultraviolet light, form a gas.
Amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990, which included the promotion of the use of natural gas and low sulfur fuel, have resulted in 23,000 fewer premature deaths in 2010, averted 1.7 million asthma attacks, and prevented 4.1 million lost work days, according to The Environmental Protection Agency.
But pollution still takes a great toll on public health. More than 4 out of 10 Americans, 127 million people, live in counties with dangerous levels of either ozone or particle pollution, the American Lung Association said.The result: increased incidents of all sorts of health problems, especially asthma, bronchitis and cardiovascular disease.
"We've been paying for this pollution for a long time," said Janice Nolen, the national policy advocate for the ALA.
The ALA report ranked cities by particle pollution, both short-term and year-round, as well as by ozone levels.
Many of the cities with the dirtiest air are located in the sunny valleys and basins of the West, where pollutants can stagnate and cook into photochemical smogs.
As a result, California lays claim to many of the most polluted cities. Bakersfield, in California's San Joaquin Valley, claimed the top spot as the most polluted city in the United States for 2012 for both types of particle pollution and was third in ozone levels. Los Angeles continues to be the worst city for ozone pollution, thanks to its heavy traffic and trade ports.
Outside the Golden State, the city with the highest ranking in any category was Pittsburgh, which came in sixth in both particle pollution categories and 20th in ozone levels. Philadelphia also ranked in the top 25 for all three pollutants.
One surprise was Fairbanks, Alaska. The city near the center of Alaska's vast and mostly empty territory recorded high scores in both types of particle pollution. Tailpipe emissions and wood smoke -- from the numerous stoves used for heating -- freeze in the sub-zero temperatures and hang around for weeks at a time. It's called ice smog.
Meanwhile, six cities managed to improve their year-round particle pollution by so much that they managed to fall off the list of the top 25 most polluted cities.
One-time major contributors to dirty air, like Detroit and New York, now rely on far less industry and are no longer among the worst offenders. Lancaster, Pa., York, Pa., Modesto, Calif. and Knoxville, Tenn., also improved enough to fall off the list.
Helping to clean up the air are stricter power plant controls, which force energy companies to use cleaner fuels and better exhaust scrubbers, said Nolen. Cleaner diesel engines have also helped a lot.
"The progress has been absolutely great," she said.
Those looking for the cleanest air can look no farther than Santa Fe-Espanola, N.M., which took the top spot for air purity in all three categories, according to the ALA's report.
Rounding out the top five for both ozone and year-round particle pollution are Bismarck, N.D., Duluth, Minn., Honolulu, Port St. Lucie, Fla., and Rapid City, S.D.
More From CNNMoney: 10 most polluted cities Real Estate Investors Best Kept Secret: College Towns 7 Electric Cars for the Future 10 Fastest Growing Cities
More on AOL Real Estate: Find out how to calculate mortgage payments. Find homes for sale in your area. Find foreclosures in your area. See celebrity real estate.
Supporting the view that the housing market is on a positive trajectory, a new report shows that the number of homes that are in the process of being sold is at its highest in two years. Meanwhile, the number of home sales that closed reached its best first quarter in 2012 since the dawn of the housing crisis, a National Association of Realtors economist says.
The NAR's Pending Home Sales Index which measures home-purchase contract signings and predicts home sale closings, ticked up 4.1 percent to 101.4 in March 2012 from an upwardly revised 97.4 in February 2012. That's also 12.8 percent above the March 2011 level. That index, compiled by the Realtors group, puts pending sales at the highest they've been since April 2010, and its encouraging measurement drove up the U.S. stock market Thursday, Bloomberg said.
National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement that 2012 has seen the best-performing first quarter in five years for home sale closings, and that the Pending Home Sales Index -- since it measures contract signings, which come before contract closings -- predicts an equally improved second quarter.
"The housing market has clearly turned the corner," Yun said. "Rising sales are bringing down inventory and creating much more balanced conditions around the country, which means home prices will be rising in more areas as the year progresses."
If Yun is right, that means a five-year downward spiral fueled by fast-and-loose lending and the price-crushing foreclosures that followed has finally come to end, leaving a humbled housing market in its wake. Around 4 million people lost their homes to foreclosure during the crisis, a number that experts say will rise by millions more, while home prices plunged by more than a third. As a result, at least 1 in 5 homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
The positive pending home sales report follows other data that has offered mixed signals about the condition of the housing market. A recent Census Bureau statistic reported that new home sales fell in March 2012, but also showed that, contrary to what the Census Bureau previously reported, new home sales actually rose significantly in February 2012.
The Case-Shiller Index, meanwhile, recently found that home prices fell in February 2012, but at a lower rate than a year earlier. Indexes that purport to provide a much more current gauge of home prices say that prices are actually rising.
While most economists agree that the housing market is making at least some headway, they often do not paint as rosy a picture as the National Association of Realtors, which calculates the Pending Home Sales Index.
Among their concerns is the looming threat of the "shadow inventory": the overhang of homes in a state of foreclosure that are expected to eventually be repossessed by banks, or homes already repossessed by banks that are being held off the market.
Due to the recent robo-signing settlement between major lenders and 49 state attorneys general, a share of these homes, economists say, may flood the market in the coming months, driving down home prices.
See also: Homebuying: 5 Key Steps to Your 1st Real Estate Purchase Home Sales See Best 1st Quarter in 5 Years, Realtors Report Says Foreclosure Rehab: Ramping Up the Battle Against Blight
More on AOL Real Estate: Find out how to calculate mortgage payments. Find homes for sale in your area. Find foreclosures in your area. See celebrity real estate.
There is plenty of play-by-play on the post-NFP sell-off in the MBS Recap. If you haven't seen those updates already, that's a good place to start, and in terms of where MBS are and what they're doing, there's not much more to say. So we'll focus instead on the longer term implications, look at charts, and consider the week ahead.
First off, here's some pictorial accompaniment for today's movement. MBS turn out to have been relatively drama-free since the initial sell-off, returning to bounce fairly convincingly for a second time at 103-18.
Even if MBS were now to break below that pivot, volume has basically dried up for the week, leaving the big bounces seen in the earlier heavy volume as the more significant from a technical perspective. To quantify the relative change in volume on the day and since the FOMC statement (last major volume spike), here's a chart of 10yr Futures Contracts volumes, both on the day, and you guessed it, since the FOMC statement:
The biggest pop of activity from 8:30 to 8:40 took 10yr yields precisely to the lower white trendline in the chart below, as if to suggest that 10's should try their luck in this uptrend (the white parallel lines are an upwardly sloped trend channel). This is the first time I've charted this uptrend, but certainly, it's seen quite a few bounces, not only on the trendlines pictured below, but also on other lines of the same slope (not pictured below because frankly, the chart is crowded enough as it is, but feel free to use your mind's eye to see the other potential locations for the similarly sloped white lines).
Despite the losses, 10's clearly rejected the notion of testing a breakout of the red line. There's also a horizontal support/resistance pivot point at 1.95, meaning that all three trends are contenders heading into next week's auction cycle. Bond markets were clearly bullish headline into today's report, and clearly had been doing more to confirm the bullish trend (red lines). So rather than the usual "sideways uncertainty" being resolved by a big piece of data, we're instead left with a strong rally resolving into sideways uncertainty. If the upper red line breaks and 1.95 isn't offering any support, 2.04 and perhaps even 2.09+ might not be that far behind, although we'd generally expect dealers to reload longs up into that territory. Auctions, however, will be more informative than our general expectations in that regard. 3's, 10's, and 30's next week, and very limited economic data to distract from that.
First Friday of the month and time, once again, for The Employment Situation Report, or more specifically, the Non-Farm Payrolls headline. Both Manufacturing and Private payrolls are expected to have fallen somewhat from last month's report with the 200k headline falling to 150k. With both stocks and bonds near their best levels in about half a year, there aren't the usual foregone conclusions about a positive report hurting interest rates or a negative report hurting stocks. Without being overly optimistic about the team for which we cheer, it seems like Treasuries and MBS would have an easier time keeping a bid in the face of threatening data.
To clean up that hypothesis a bit, let's say NFP comes in between 150-200k, beating the 150k consensus. Historically, such a result would tend to lead rates higher, but in the current environment where we've seen more of a leveling off in the broad swath of other domestic economic data, where last month's report printed 50k higher than this month's consensus, and where an unprecedented level of demand for US Treasuries continues unabated until Europe is "fixed," it doesn't seem like a beat that falls in that 150-200k range is the end of the low-interest rate world. Granted, even a bigger beat would be hard pressed to cause the end of low interest rates, but the moral of this story is the "underlying default positivity," (or whatever you want to call it... we give up) that pervades US Treasuries and even MBS.
But what would happen to stocks if NFP misses the consensus. The recent rally in stocks is impressively stable, almost indicative of it's own version of the "underlying default positivity" (Buy American?). But we can't help but think that the print needs to hit at least 150k (or have some favorable "yeah buts" in the internal components) for stocks to come out ahead tomorrow. Then again, we're probably setting ourselves up for disappointment by trying to apply logic to equities. Maybe we should stick with bond markets.
With that in mind, logic dictates, well... we're not sure. All we really know is that Treasuries are at the more aggressive end of a flat range or a bullish trend channel. Either way, left to their own devices with no NFP tomorrow and no Europe, yields would probably bounce higher and MBS prices would probably fall. So whatever the suggestion from NFP, it will need to speak loudly enough in favor of economic uncertainty if we're to maintain recently achieved all-time highs in MBS tomorrow. It COULD do this even with a 150k print, but the higher it is from there, the more and more challenging our day becomes, probably.
There's other data after the 8:30 AM Jobs report (Factory Orders and ISM Non-Manufacturing), but we're not planning on paying much attention to it unless NFP leaves us woefully desirous of additional economic clarification. On the other hand, for the first time in a few months, it feels like we're heading into Jobs data with the distinct risk of going sideways or weaker, and with less developed speculation/hopes of bond markets strengthening on a lackluster report.
The monthly Employment Situation Report was released at 8:30am this morning, with much better-than-expected results. Stocks rallied sharply and most every interest rate in fixed-income markets moved higher. The economic optimism created by this sort of data tends to increase demand for riskier investments like stocks and lower demand for things like fixed-income notes and bonds. MBS (the "mortgage backed securities" that most directly govern mortgage rates) fall into this fixed-income sector, and definitely weakened following the jobs data. As a result, Mortgages Rates moved higher at their fastest pace in some time, traversing most of this week's territory, but leaving Best-Execution rates mostly at 3.875%. (learn more about how we calculate Best-Execution in THIS POST).
We'd said yesterday that MBS were looking like a runner in baseball taking a "lead-off," waiting to find out whether or not the jobs data would be "a hit." We went on to say a stronger than expected report would result in MBS simply moving back to the safety of the base to wait for the next pitch. That's essentially what's transpired today. Our heroic little base-runner was clearly spooked by the data, and clearly backtracked to previous ground. But in the process, we see "the base" metaphor emerging as a real possibility, in that markets weakened, but were able to dig in and hold firm after a certain point. Bottom line, the runner is back on the base, but was not "tagged out," at least not today.
The next pitches will be thrown next week in the form of US Treasury auctions. While it's true that mortgage rates are based on MBS and NOT on Treasuries, the Treasury Auctions are still a significant event for MBS, especially the longer maturity issues on Wednesday and Thursday. Things are less certain on Monday and Tuesday, and it's possible rates could be weaker if markets extend today's movements against the backdrop of limited economic data on those first two days of the week. We'll know a lot more about how longer-term trends are evolving with the passing of at least the first important auction, Wednesday's 10yr Notes. Between now and then, 3.875% Best-Execution is STILL on the table, albeit at a higher cost than yesterday. The point is that if you didn't lock yesterday, today is not so much worse that you should just hold off indefinitely. For those who are taking the risk floating into next week, things could get bumpy, but we'll know a lot more about that on Wednesday.
On a final note, we have to put out the constant caveat that European headlines do not adhere to a schedule and certainly have the potential to move markets in unexpected ways, by unexpected amounts, at unexpected times.
Today's BEST-EXECUTION Rates
30YR FIXED - 3.875% mostly, less 3.75 today, 4.0's getting closer FHA/VA -3.75% 15 YEAR FIXED - 3.25% 5 YEAR ARMS - 2.625-3.25% depending on the lender
Ongoing Lock/Float Considerations
Rates and costs continue to operate near all time best levelsCurrent levels have experienced increasing resistance in improving much from hereThere are technical reasons for that as well as fundamental reasons Lenders tend to get busier when rates are in this "high 3's" level and can throttle their inbound volume by raising rates or costs.While we don't necessarily think rates are destined to go higher, given the above facts, there seems to be more risk than reward regarding floatingBut that will always be the case when rates operating near historic lows(As always, please keep in mind that our talk of Best-Execution always pertains to a completely ideal scenario. There can be all sorts of reasons that your quoted rate would not be the same as our average rates, and in those cases, assuming you're following along on a day to day basis, simply use the Best-Ex levels we quote as a baseline to track potential movement in your quoted rate).You can see a list of all comments on MND by clicking the 'Read the Latest Comments' option under the 'Community' menu.
Supporting the view that the housing market is on a positive trajectory, a new report shows that the number of homes that are in the process of being sold is at its highest in two years. Meanwhile, the number of home sales that closed reached its best first quarter in 2012 since the dawn of the housing crisis, a National Association of Realtors economist says. 
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