Mortgage rates are improving today after the government announced a bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Investors are more confident to step in and buy Mortgage Bonds which carry a higher return than Treasuries, but now have the same guarantee.

Now if you own common stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it’s not a very good day at all. Both stocks were down over 83% earlier and trading under $1.00.

Back to good news again. WAMu’s CEO Kerry Killinger was finally booted after driving the ship onto the rocks last year. The company has had huge losses in its mortgage portfolio. WAMu was heavily involved in sub-prime lending and peddled Option ARM’s to pretty much anyone.

Noteworthy items:

34% of homeowners who extracted equity from their homes from 2001-04 used the money for other investments (stocks, real estate, etc).

There are 18.4 million students at US colleges this fall - up almost 5 million from 20 years ago.

The minimum salary for an NFL rookie this season is $295,000.