Mortgage Rate News

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Unlike Citigroup, which reported a large loss yesterday, Morgan Stanley is posting a profit. Indeed, Morgan Stanley’s profit is the second straight quarterly profit, and huge improvement over the $11 billion loss from this time a year ago. CNN Money reports on Morgan Stanley’s profit:

“In a year of transition for our firm and the entire financial services industry, the employees of Morgan Stanley delivered substantially improved financial performance while also making significant progress on critical strategic initiatives that will drive our business in the years ahead,” Gorman said in a statement Wednesday morning.

The securities firm said revenue for 2009 doubled from a year ago, excluding gains and losses tied to changes in Morgan Stanley’s debt-related credit spreads.

Of course, even with the profit, things didn’t turn out quite like analysts had hoped. The news was considered somewhat disappointing. And, on top of that, banks and mortgage lenders are getting another round of bad news as China announces that it will curb lending for the rest of this month. It definitely appears as though, while things seem to be improving overall for financial companies, there will be a long road to actual recovery.

Scott Brown, health care and the markets

Morgan Stanley’s disappointing profits have largely been ignored, though, in the wake of the political coup scored by Republicans in Massachusetts. The notoriously liberal state is sending its first GOP Senator in around 40 years to Washington with the surprise election of Scott Brown. This is throwing the debate about health care into a new light, with pundits speculating that it’s back to the drawing board, since Brown will make it possible for Republicans to filibuster debate, causing the current legislation to die.

It should be an interesting day in the financial markets today, with plenty of potential for big moves before the markets close in three hours.