Thursday’s bond market has opened in positive territory to recover part of yesterday’s post-FOMC losses. Stocks are also rebounding from their afternoon sell-off, pushing the Dow higher by 153 points and the Nasdaq up 305 points. The bond market is currently up 14/32 (4.44%), but the late selling after the FOMC events is going to leave this morning’s mortgage rates approximately .125 - .250 of a discount point higher than Wednesday’s early pricing. The size of this morning’s increase depends on how much of an intraday revision(s) you saw after the FOMC meeting ended yesterday. Bonds tanked enough that most, if not all, big lenders issued an intraday increase in rates before the end of the day.

Last week’s unemployment figures were posted early this morning. They showed 226,000 new claims for jobless benefits were filed, down from the previous week’s revised 230,000 initial filings. This number was inline with expectations and hints that the employment sector strengthened slightly last week. While a decline in claims is unfavorable for bonds, we haven’t seen a reaction to this morning’s release.

The Conference Board released their Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) for May at 10:00 AM ET. They announced a 0.1% increase in the LEI, meaning the indicators are predicting flat-to-modest growth in the economy over the next several months. Forecasts had the report showing a 0.1% rise, making the news neutral for bonds and mortgage rates. As with the weekly claims data, this report has had no impact on this morning’s rates.

The markets are closed tomorrow for the Juneteenth Day holiday and will reopen Monday morning for regular trading hours. Those lenders that are open for business tomorrow will likely use this afternoon’s pricing. Since there is no data being released and the markets are closed, there will be no update to this report tomorrow morning.

Next week starts light with nothing of importance scheduled for Monday. We will get some influential data the latter days, including the Personal Income and Outlays report that has the Fed’s preferred inflation indexes in it (PCE indexes). There are also a couple of shorter-term Treasury auctions. Now that the FOMC meeting is behind us, we will also start seeing individual Fed members speaking publicly again. Look for details on all of next week’s activities in Sunday evening’s weekly preview.

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.