October 12th, 2018 3:35 PM by T. Fanning
Last Updated: 10/12/18Friday's bond market has opened in negative territory with stocks rebounding from yesterday's afternoon sell-off, Part II. The Dow is currently up 248 points while the Nasdaq is up 149 points. These gains are noticeable and putting a little pressure on bonds, but are just a fraction of the two-day loss. The bond market is currently down 5/32 (3.16%). However, as stock selling accelerated late yesterday, bonds improved and some lenders improved mortgage rates before the end of the day. This morning's pricing should still be slightly better than Thursday's early rates. If your lender improved pricing intraday, you will likely see a very minor increase in this morning's pricing.The University of Michigan closed out this week's economic calendar with their Index of Consumer Sentiment for October at 10:00 AM ET. It came in at 99.0, falling short of the 100.0 that was forecasted and down from September's 100.1. The decline makes the data goof news for bonds and mortgage rates because waning confidence indicates consumers may be less willing to spend. Since consumer spending makes up almost 70% of the U.S. economy, related data is relevant to the markets. Unfortunately, this is only a moderately important report that comes on a day that traders are more concerned with other factors. That has prevented the news from affecting today's mortgage rates.It will be interesting to see what transpires during afternoon trading today. Will stocks repeat the pattern of the past two days by going into selling mode? Or will the buying accelerate, driving the indexes even higher than they are now? It has been an extremely active week for the financial and mortgage markets. I don't believe that we will see the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note yield remain at 3.16%. It is likely to move closer to 3.12% or higher towards 3.23%. Since mortgage rates tend to track bond yields, the latter would be bad news for mortgage shoppers. Ideally, we would like to see stocks reverse course today, head into the weekend with another noticeable loss, fueling more bond buying. If still floating an interest rate, it would be extremely prudent to watch the markets and maintain contact with your mortgage professional until this volatility fades away.Next week is not overly busy in terms of the number of economic reports we will get, but there is one big release in addition to the minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting and a couple of moderately important reports. The big news will come Monday morning when September's Retail Sales data is posted, giving us insight into consumer spending. Look for details on it and the rest of the week's activities in Sunday evening's weekly report.If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would....Lock if my closing were taking place within 7 days...Lock if my closing were taking place between 8 and 20 days...Float if my closing were taking place between 21 and 60 days...Float if my closing were taking place over 60 days from now...This is only my opinion of what I would do if I was financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.**http://www.hlmcolorado.com/DailyRateAdvisory
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