Wednesday Morning Market Update

Wednesday’s bond market has opened in positive territory with nothing of importance scheduled today and stocks showing early losses. The major stock indexes are showing noticeable losses with the Dow down 88 points and the Nasdaq down 40 points.

There is nothing scheduled for release today that is likely to affect bond trading or mortgage rates. Stocks are helping to boost bonds during morning trading with a negative reaction to some earnings data. If stocks extend their current losses, we could see bond prices move higher as the day progresses and possibly a slight improvement to mortgage rates. If they remain near current levels, I suspect rates will follow suit.

Tomorrow has two minor pieces of economic data that we will be watching. The first is the weekly unemployment update from the Labor Department. They are expected to announce that 341,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, down from the previous week’s 358,000 initial claims. The higher the number of new claims, the better the news for the bond market and mortgage pricing because rising unemployment claims indicates employment sector weakness. However, since this data tracks only a single week's worth of new claims, its impact on the markets is usually minimal unless it shows an unexpected spike or sizable drop in filings.

August's Trade Balance report will also be released early tomorrow morning. It gives us the size of the U.S. trade deficit but is the week's least important report and likely will have little impact on the bond market and mortgage rates. Analysts are expecting to see a $38.6 billion deficit, but it will take a wide variance from forecasts to directly influence mortgage pricing.

 

I would suggest floating your rate, but stay focused on what the market is doing. We could have a quick rebound in rates at any time.