by Calculated Risk on 3/27/2016 08:02:00 PM

This immigration program has really boosted sales in certain California and New York areas, from the WSJ: U.S. Immigration Program for Foreign Investors Sees Demand Surge

The program, known as EB-5, received applications from 17,691 investors in 2015, up from 11,744 in 2014 and 6,554 in 2013, according to figures released last week by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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The EB-5 program offers green cards to aspiring immigrants who invest at least $500,000 into certain businesses that have been determined to create at least 10 jobs per investor.

First created in 1990, EB-5 was barely used until the aftermath of the 2008 recession, when real-estate developers realized it offered a cheap and accessible form of financing when banks were reluctant to lend. The program has since become mainstream within the real-estate development world, particularly among high-end developers in New York, who recruit heavily in China.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of March 27, 2016

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays for February. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in personal income, and for a 0.1% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2%.

• At 10:00 AM, Pending Home Sales Index for February. The consensus is for a 1.5% increase in the index.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for March. This is the last of the regional Fed manufacturing surveys for March.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are up 4 and DOW futures are up 44 (fair value).

Oil prices were mixed over the last week with WTI futures at $39.75 per barrel and Brent at $40.64 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $46, and Brent was at $54 - so prices are down about 15% to 22% year-over-year, respectively.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.04 per gallon (down almost $0.40 per gallon from a year ago).