Monday’s bond market has opened in negative territory following Middle East headlines that caused oil prices to rise again. Stocks are starting the week mixed with the Dow down 220 points and the Nasdaq up 4 points. The bond market is currently down 12/32 (4.42%), which should push this morning’s mortgage rates higher than Friday’s early pricing by approximately .250 of a discount point.

This morning’s economic data is not the reason for the negative open in bonds even though it came in stronger than expected. March's Factory Orders report was released at 10:00 AM ET, revealing a 1.5% increase in new orders for durable and non-durable goods. This was much stronger than the 0.5% increase that was expected, signaling strength in the manufacturing sector. However, bonds were at their current levels long before this data was posted this morning, telling us the data had no impact on bond trading or mortgage pricing.

What seems to be driving bond trading and oil prices this morning is back and forth headlines regarding the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump announced yesterday that the U.S. military would start escorting ships through the strait to help unclogged the backup in oil and other shipping that has been unable to pass through it. That news is easily favorable for bonds because the backlog has global supplies low and prices per barrel high as a result. However, Iran then said they would attack any ship passing through, including U.S. military vessels. They also announced this morning that a military ship had been fired upon, which was denied by the U.S. The unreliability of news coming from the area is just contributing to higher oil prices and inflation concerns.

The rest of the week brings us six more monthly and quarterly economic reports that we will be watching. One of them is considered to be extremely important to the financial and mortgage markets. There is also an abundance of Fed speeches that may come into play and a large number of corporate earnings announcements this week. Iran news and oil prices will also likely affect bond trading and mortgage pricing at some point. We could see multiple days with a noticeable change in rates, possibly intraday revisions also.

We will get April’s non-manufacturing index (aka service index) from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) at 10:00 AM tomorrow. This is the sister release to last week's ISM manufacturing index, measuring sentiment of business executives in the service sector rather than manufacturing. Forecasts have the index slipping from March's 54.0 to 53.8 last month. Good news for mortgage rates would be a smaller than predicted reading.

Also late tomorrow morning will be the release of February and March’s New Home Sales data. This government shutdown delayed data gives us an indication of strength in the small portion of the housing sector that the Existing Home Sales report doesn’t cover. It tracks sales of newly constructed homes by U.S. region rather than resales, but this report usually doesn’t have an impact on mortgage rates unless there is a significant variance from forecasts and little other news that day.

Now that the FOMC meeting is behind us, members of the Fed are allowed to speak publicly again about topics such as monetary policy and the economy. These individual speeches may yield opinions about future monetary policy moves in much more detail than the official FOMC statement showed last week. There is at least one of these speeches scheduled each day of the week with them set for all hours throughout the day. However, most of the topics listed are mundane and not related to key short-term rates and therefore, are not likely to yield anything relevant to mortgage rates.

Overall, Friday is the most important day for rates due to the significance the governmental Employment report carries, but we could see a sizable move in pricing multiple days. Thursday is a good candidate for calmest day. We should see plenty of headlines and movement in bonds that cause changes to rates this week. Therefore, please keep a close eye on the markets if still floating an interest rate and closing in the near future.

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... Float 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.