• Wednesday’s mortgage rates should be slightly higher than Tuesday’s early pricing because of bonds weakened late yesterday. The bond market is currently down 5/32 (4.12%).

 • The major stock indexes are posting early gains of 110 points in the Dow and 301 points in the Nasdaq.

 • There is no relevant economic news set for release today, but we have two afternoon events that are worth watching. First will be results of today’s 20-year Treasury Bond auction at 1:00 PM ET. If there is a stronger demand for today’s securities than last week’s sales, we may see bond prices rise and mortgage rates improve slightly before the end of the day.

 • Today’s second afternoon event will be the 2:00 PM ET release of the minutes from last month's FOMC meeting. These minutes will help show how the lack of data was affecting the Fed’s thought process. However, not knowing which reports they will have before the December 9-10th FOMC meeting could have bond traders looking backward to the previous meeting to help form an opinion about what is likely to happen next month. Look for the minutes to cause a reaction during mid or late afternoon trading.

 • Tomorrow is likely to be an active day for the bond and mortgage markets. We are set to get a bunch of employment data and a housing report tomorrow morning.

 • The big news will come at 8:30 AM ET when September’s monthly Employment report is finally released. It is expected to show the unemployment rate held at August’s 4.3%, while 50,000 new jobs were added to the economy and earnings rose 0.3%. Favorable news for the bond market and mortgage rates would be an increase in unemployment, a smaller payroll number and softer than predicted earnings that indicate the employment sector was weaker than expected.

 • Also early tomorrow morning will be a catchup of sorts for the weekly unemployment updates that we missed during the shutdown. It is hard to tell how the markets will react to this data tomorrow. It will give more recent insight into the employment situation than September’s monthly report, but weekly claims aren’t usually a big market mover. Rising claims are a sign of weakness in the sector, meaning higher numbers would be more favorable for rates than unexpected low numbers.

 • October's Existing Home Sales report will be posted at 10:00 AM ET tomorrow. The National Association of Realtors is expected to announce an increase in home resales, meaning the housing sector improved slightly last month. Unless it shows a significant surprise, this data will likely not have a major impact on rates because the employment sector is drawing much more attention than the housing sector.

 • Visit our Daily Commentary page on our site for detailed explanations on current news that is relevant to mortgage rates.

 

 

 

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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.