My wife Ellen and I are born 11 days apart.

I turned 57 earlier this month and Ellen turns 57 today.

Last year she was in Germany with her sisters on her yearly sister trip for her birthday. This year I am over in Ireland and her sister trip to Morocco ended mid month.

Happy Birthday Ellen…I love you.

Last year Ellen thought it would be a good idea to refinance our home. We use First Republic and in hindsight that looks incredibly smart less than one year later. Our interest rate is in the low 2’s and today 30 year mortgage rates are 7.5 percent.

On every $100,000 in mortgage borrowing, the cost has risen approximately $500/month.

This has the markets attention and therefore my attention.

My friend Joe is a good trader and investor and he posted this yesterday…

I am not sure what happens next with rates, but a very long term downtrend has been broken (on a monthly basis). The rate of ascent is frightening and I am not sure what the chain of unintended consequences holds. I do think stocks have a ton of competition for marginal investing dollars which is a new twist /risk for the buy the dip generation.