Thursday, September 18th
Thursday’s bond market has opened in negative territory, extending yesterday’s post-FOMC selling. Stocks are showing early gains of 163 points in the Dow and 216 points in the Nasdaq. The bond market is currently down 10/32 (4.11%), which with yesterday’s afternoon weakness should cause this morning’s mortgage rates to be approximately .375 - .500 of a discount point higher than Wednesday’s early pricing.
10/32
Bonds
30 yr - 4.11%
163
Dow
48,181
216
NASDAQ
22,478
Trailing 90 Days - National Average
Medium
Negative
The first of this morning’s two relevant economic reports came at 8:30 AM ET when last week’s unemployment figures were posted. They revealed 231,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were made last week, down from the previous week’s revised 264,000. Analysts were expecting to see a numbers around 240,000. Since declining weekly claims are a sign of strength in the employment sector and the number of new filings was lower than thought, we have to label the report bad news for bonds and mortgage rates.
Low
Positive
August’s Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) were released at 10:00 AM ET. The Conference Board announced a 0.5% decline in the indicators when a 0.1% decline was expected. This means the indicators are predicting moderately slower economic activity over the next three to six months. As a sign of economic weakness, the report is good news for rates. However, the Conference Board is a New York-based business research group and not a governmental agency. Accordingly, the data doesn’t carry the same level of influence as many other reports.
Low
Unknown
Tomorrow doesn’t have anything scheduled that we need to be concerned about in terms of impact on rates. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly has a speaking engagement at 2:30 PM ET, but the topic appears to be related to AI implications in the workplace and not about the economy or inflation. Now that the FOMC meeting is behind us, the Fed’s mandatory quiet period has ended. This means we will be getting many more Fed-member speeches in the coming weeks that may influence the markets. However, it appears that this is not one of them.
If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Lock if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days... Lock if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.