My Mind on Mortgages

Mortgage rates are higher this morning. See today’s you tube video for an explanation. We are shifting our outlook to a neutral stance because mortgage-backed bond prices appear to have technical support at the current levels. Should prices dip below support we will shift our outlook to locking. Tomorrow the Labor Department will be releasing [...]

Mortgage rates remain unchanged from Friday.  With the lack of any significant economic data out today we expect mortgage rates to take direction from the stock market. Currently stocks are trading modestly higher following positive comments made by banking analyst Meredith Whitney on CNBC this morning.  Her comments have helped push financial stocks higher.  If [...]

According to this article featured in the Economist magazine back at the beginning of July the markets are currently less certain about the future prospects of long-term interest rates (i.e. mortgage rates). The chart to the left shows that the “implied volatility” in the interest rate market has increased rather significantly since the beginning of [...]

Overall mortgage rates are essentially unchanged this morning. Although mortgage-backed bond prices declined yesterday afternoon threatening to push mortgage rates higher; they have rallied this morning on weaker than expected consumer confidence figures. Early on in 2nd-quarter earnings season there hasn’t been too many surprises.  The bulk of reports will begin to roll out next [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged this morning. Since Wednesday of last week 30-year fixed rates have dropped by .375% as investors have shifted investment dollars away from equities and into “safer” bond investments (in that time both the S & P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average have also dropped).  The shift away from risk was [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged this morning. As traders and investors await the 2nd quarter earnings season that kicks off tomorrow afternoon we don’t expect there to be a catalyst that would help mortgage rates move any lower. Beginning tomorrow we’ll need to keep a close eye on the stock market for clues on how mortgage [...]

Mortgage rates are essentially unchanged this morning despite an economic storyline that would typically help rates move lower. Equity markets around the world traded lower today as investors pull back on stocks ahead of earnings season which kicks off on Wednesday.  The US Dollar is trading higher against foreign currencies and oil prices are lower.  [...]

In yesterday’s ‘rate update’ we recommended floating rates into today’s jobs report and fortunately our advice paid off. Both fixed rates and ARMs are down significantly this morning. FHA rates remain unchanged. Analysts’ expectations were for 363,000 jobs lost last month. The report issued this morning showed that the economy lost over 100,000 more than [...]

Mortgage rates are unchanged from yesterday and are expected to remain here until tomorrow’s monthly jobs report.  Click this link to learn why the jobs report is such an important economic report for mortgage rates. Given the current condition of the economy it’s expected that tomorrow’s jobs report will be ugly which would ordinarily help [...]

Fixed rates are slightly higher this morning due to positive news regarding the housing market as well as technical trading patterns. This morning’s S & P Case-Shiller report shows that although home prices declined in all of the 20 urban markets it covers, the annualized decline was less than previous reports (for an explanation as [...]