Tuesday, August 18th
Tuesday’s bond market has opened in positive territory following favorable economic news. Stocks are showing early losses of 39 points in the Dow and 346 points in the Nasdaq. The bond market is currently up 2/32 (4.71%), but weakness in bonds late yesterday is going to cause this morning’s mortgage rates to be slightly higher than Monday’s early pricing.
2/32
Bonds
30 yr - 4.71%
39
Dow
53,420
346
NASDAQ
26,298
Trailing 90 Days - National Average
Low
Positive
This morning’s first economic release revealed more weakness in the housing sector. July’s Housing starts report showed new groundbreakings dropped 12.4% last month, coming in much weaker than expected. Furthermore, we can’t blame multi-family starts, such as apartments and condos, as the primary reason because groundbreakings of single-family homes fell 9.9% last month. The latter is much more relevant to mortgage rates and allows us to label the report as favorable. Unfortunately, this report doesn’t carry a high level of importance in the markets, restricting a more favorable impact on this morning’s pricing.
Medium
Neutral
Also released this morning was July's Industrial Production report at 9:15 AM ET. It showed that output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities rose 0.2% when forecasts had it at up 0.3%. This wasn’t enough of a variance from expectations for it to have an impact on this morning’s bond trading or mortgage pricing. Therefore, we are labeling the release as neutral for mortgage rates.
Medium
Unknown
Tomorrow's only scheduled events that are related to mortgage rates come during afternoon trading. There is a 20-year Treasury Bond auction happening tomorrow with results set to be posted at 1:00 PM ET. Good news would be the benchmarks showing a strong demand for the securities since these are considered long-term debt and mortgage rates are based on long-term securities. If the results indicate a strong sale, we could see bond yields and mortgage pricing move lower tomorrow afternoon. On the other hand, a lackluster interest in the securities may lead to an upward revision to pricing.
Medium
Unknown
Next up is the 2:00 PM ET release of the minutes from last month's FOMC meeting. The key points traders are looking for are discussions amongst Fed members about inflation, the future of the employment sector, and how the Iran war may affect the Fed's plans for key short-term interest rates. The markets are currently predicting the Fed will raise short-term rates sometime this year to help push inflation lower as it remains stubbornly above the Fed’s goal rate of 2.00%. If the minutes indicate that rate hike may be coming sooner than later, we may see a negative reaction in bonds that leads to an upward move in mortgage rates before the end of the day tomorrow.
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... Float 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.