• Friday’s mortgage rates should be lower by approximately .250 of a discount point, partly due to strength in bonds late yesterday. The bond market is currently up 7/32 (4.29%).
• Stocks are mixed with the Dow down 127 points and the Nasdaq up 74 points.
• Yesterday’s 7-year Treasury Note auction didn’t go as well as Wednesday’s 5-year Note sale. The benchmarks showed investors were more interested in the 5-year Notes than the 7-year Notes, revealing an average demand compared to other recent sales of the same securities. We did see a favorable move shortly after they were announced at 1:00 PM ET, but that appears to be a mere coincidence.
• The University of Michigan released their revised Index of Consumer Sentiment for April at 10:00 AM ET this morning. They announced a reading of 52.2 that was higher than expected and an increase from the preliminary estimate of 50.8 earlier this month. The increase means surveyed consumers felt better about their own financial and employment situations than they did previously and are likely to spend more in the near future.
• Next week has plenty scheduled that is likely to influence the markets and affect mortgage rates.
• The week starts light with nothing of importance scheduled for Monday and then begins to get interesting with some moderately important data Tuesday.
• Wednesday begins the highly important economic releases. This is when we will get the initial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reading for the 1st quarter and the report that includes the Fed’s preferred inflation data.
• Thursday follows with the ISM manufacturing index before the almighty monthly Employment report Friday morning.
• Look for details on all of next week’s activities in Sunday evening’s weekly preview.
• Visit our Daily Commentary page on our site for detailed explanations on current news that is relevant to mortgage rates.