Monday’s bond market has opened in positive territory following favorable economic news. The major stock indexes are rallying, partly due to gains in oil-related companies that are expected to benefit from this weekend’s Venezuela headlines. The Dow is currently up 553 points while the Nasdaq has gained 187 points. The bond market is currently up 6/32 (4.16%), but losses during Friday’s light trading should keep this morning’s mortgage rates nearly unchanged from Friday’s early pricing. If you saw an intraday increase in rates Friday afternoon, you should see an improvement this morning of about the same size.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) announced their December manufacturing index at 10:00 AM ET this morning. They said the index stood at 49.7 last month, reaching its lowest level since October 2024. This was a decline from November’s 48.2 and weaker than forecasts of 48.3, indicating the manufacturing sector is not as strong as many had thought. A reading below 50.0 is considered to be a sign of contraction in the sector instead of growth. Accordingly, we can consider the data to be good news for bonds and mortgage rates.

As expected, this weekend’s Venezuela news is having a minimal impact on bond trading and no influence on this morning’s rates. It is helping to boost stocks, particularly oil companies since President Trump has said that U.S. companies will be involved in tapping the country’s vast reserves. Unless this issue spreads to conflict with other countries, we shouldn’t see mortgage rates affected by the events. The next few days and weeks will tell us if this is something that will influence bond yields or mortgage pricing.

There is nothing of importance scheduled for tomorrow other than a Fed-member speech that likely will not have an impact on rates. The remainder of the week brings us six more monthly and quarterly economic reports that we will be watching. More importantly, the reports that we consider highly important are current rather than the old shutdown-delayed reports that we were getting last month.

Overall, Friday is the most important day of the week for rates due to the importance and influence of December’s Employment that will be posted. The calmest day will likely be tomorrow unless something unexpected happens overnight. We could see multiple days with a noticeable move in rates this week. Therefore, it would certainly be prudent to keep an 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... 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.