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Thursday's bond market has opened in negative territory following early stock gains and stronger than expected economic results. The stock markets are rebounding from yesterday's losses with the Dow up 206points and the Nasdaq up 56 points. The bond market is currently down 12/32, but due to strength late yesterday we will likely see little change in this morning's mortgage rates.
4.5% for 30 year (APR 4.55%) 15 year loans are at 4% (APR – 4.1%) Call us today to review your situation.
The Labor Department gave us the first of three economic reports this morning. They said that 464,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week. This was higher than expected and can be considered good news for bonds and mortgage rates, but the data does not carry enough weight to offset the other reports and stock rally that we are seeing this morning.
The National Association of Realtors said that home resales fell 5.1% last month. While this is a sizable drop and basically favorable news for bonds, it was a smaller decline than many analysts had expected. This means that while home sales fell, they were still stronger than forecasts were calling for. Fortunately for mortgage rates, this data also is not considered to be highly important.
June's Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) was today's last report. The Conference Board reported a 0.2% decline, indicating that economic activity is likely to slow in the coming months. Analysts were expecting to see a 0.4% drop in the index, so this data can be considered negative for bonds and mortgage pricing.
There is no relevant economic data scheduled for release tomorrow, so look for the stock markets to be the biggest force behind bond trading and mortgage rates. If stocks rally again, we may see increases in mortgage rates. But if the major stock indexes give back some of today's gains, we may see improvements to mortgage rates tomorrow. Source information from mortgagecommentary.com and Kent Friend
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