Thursday Market Update

Thursday’s bond market has opened up slightly with stocks posting another round of losses as the government shutdown continues without a quick resolution in sight. The Dow is currently down 123 points while the Nasdaq has lost 31 points.

We did get last week’s unemployment figures early this morning. The report showed that 308,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week. This was a slight change from the previous week’s revised total of 307,000 initial claims, indicating the employment sector didn’t strengthen or weaken much last week. Since analysts were expecting to see an increase in new claims that would have pointed towards a softening sector, we should consider the news slightly negative for the bond market and mortgage rates. Fortunately, it has had little impact on this morning’s trading or mortgage pricing.

Fed Chairman Bernanke’s afternoon speech yesterday was a non-factor in the markets. He gave the opening statement at a community banking conference in St. Louis, but did not address monetary policy or other matters that were relevant to mortgage rates. He also did not participate in a Q&A session, so there was no opportunity to draw information or opinions out of him.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the key day of the week with the release of September’s Employment report that was going to create havoc in the financial and mortgage markets. Due to the stalemate in Washington D.C., that is not going to happen though. There is no private-sector economic reports scheduled tomorrow that have the potential to move mortgage rates, although, there are a couple of speaking engagements by multiple Fed members throughout the day. There is always a possibility of their words affecting the markets, particularly since traders have little else to focus on. I expect stock movement to drive early bond trading and morning mortgage rates. Then we can turn our attention to those speeches for any surprises later in the day.

 

Continue to hold off on locking your rate until the government gets their act together (must happen by Oct. 17^th).