• Wednesday’s mortgage rates should be lower than Tuesday’s early pricing by approximately .125 - .250 of a discount point. If you saw an intraday improvement in rates yesterday, you may see little change this morning or maybe even a slight increase, depending on the size of Tuesday’s afternoon revision. The bond market is currently down 4/32 (4.08%).

 • Stocks are extending yesterday’s afternoon gains to push the Dow higher by 180 points and the Nasdaq up 205 points.

 • February's ADP Employment report was released at 8:15 AM ET this morning, revealing 63,000 new private-sector jobs were added to the economy last month. This was higher than the 45,000 that was expected and comes along with a downward revision of 11,000 to January’s number.

 • The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) announced their non-manufacturing index at 10:00 AM ET. They said their service index stood at 56.1 last month, exceeding forecasts of 54.0 and higher than January’s 53.8. The increase means surveyed service sector executives felt business conditions were better last month than the month before.

 • We also have the Fed Beige Book to watch for later today. This periodic Fed report is posted two weeks before their FOMC meeting, detailing economic activity in each Federal Reserve region via their business contacts. The Fed relies heavily on this data when determining monetary policy at their FOMC meetings, so look for a potential reaction during mid-afternoon trading.

 • Tomorrow has two moderately important economic reports before Friday’s major releases.

 • First will be last week’s unemployment figures at 8:30 AM ET. They are expected to show 215,000 new claims for jobless benefits were filed during the week. The previous week had 212,000 new claims and rising claims are a sign of weakness in the employment sector. Therefore, the larger the number of new filings, the better the news it is for mortgage pricing.

 • Employee Productivity and Costs data for the 4th quarter will also be released early tomorrow morning. If the productivity reading varies greatly from the 3rd quarter's 4.9% rise, we may see a slight move in mortgage pricing. Higher levels of worker productivity are good news for the bond market because it allows the economy to expand without fueling inflation. AI is expected to improve productivity, so it will be interesting to see how much of an impact it will have on this data.

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

CLICK HERE to view full detailed report and recommendations

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.