Rate Lock Advisory

Tuesday, June 9th

Tuesday’s bond market has opened in positive territory to recover some of yesterday’s afternoon weakness. Stocks are mixed with the Dow up 173 points and the Nasdaq down 46 points. The bond market is currently up 5/32 (4.54%), but weakness late in the day is going to cause an increase of approximately 0.125 of a discount point in this morning’s mortgage rates. If you saw an intraday increase Monday afternoon, you should see little change this morning.

5/32

Bonds

30 yr - 4.54%

173

Dow

50,959

46

NASDAQ

25,882

Mortgage Rate Trend

Trailing 90 Days - National Average

  • 30 Year Fixed
  • 15 Year Fixed
  • 5/1 ARM

Indexes Affecting Rate Lock

Medium

Neutral

Existing Home Sales from National Assoc of Realtors

The National Association of Realtors announced late this morning that home resales rose 3.2% last month. This was a larger increase than what was expected, but not strong enough to cause concern in the bond market. Favorable news would have been a decline in sales to show weakness in the sector. However, we haven’t seen a reaction to the data, allowing us to label it neutral for rates.

High

Unknown

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Tomorrow morning brings us the release of the highly influential Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May that measures inflationary pressures at the consumer level of the economy. This data is watched closely and has the potential to lead to significant volatility in the bond market and mortgage pricing if it shows a major surprise. Rising inflation makes a bond's future fixed interest payments less valuable to investors today and makes the Fed more likely to raise key short-term rates before they lower them again. Forecasts have the overall index rising 0.5% for the month while the more important core data that excludes volatile food and energy costs is expected to rise 0.3%. Annual readings are predicted to rise from April's year-over-year rate also. Weaker than expected readings would be very good news for mortgage rates. On the other hand, stronger inflation numbers usually lead to higher mortgage pricing.

Medium

Unknown

Treasury Auctions (5,7,10,20,30 year)

Also tomorrow is the 10-year Note auction that will have results announced at 1:00 PM ET. If investor demand was high for these securities, we may see bonds rally during afternoon trading, possibly leading to an intraday improvement in rates. However, weak interest in these types of sales often lead to bond selling and higher mortgage rates. We should see a stronger reaction to this week’s auctions than other recent sales of short-term notes because these are for long-term securities and mortgage rates are based on long-term debt.

Float / Lock Recommendation

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... Lock 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.