It's Jobless Claims Thursday but Oil and Durable Goods Orders are the headline acts. Yesterday I recommended floating but to keep a watchful eye on the market so that you could act quickly in case the market moved against you. I also said that a great way to do that is to download my app from the top right side of my blog (buyerZapp). Well sure as shootin' the market deteriorated and I sent out an alert to lock and about .5 - one hour later, the market had a re-price for the worse. If you downloaded my app, you would have gotten my alert and you could have locked ahead of the reprice. That's what I do for my clients.
So what's happening today? Oil is down - not a whole lot, but it's down and this is what's keeping bonds from heading south after some very strong and surprising Durable Goods Orders numbers. January's Headline Durable Goods Orders came in at 4.9% vs. 2.5% expected. Ex-transportation, they were 1.8% vs. .2%. These are strong and they bode well for manufacturing. Jobless Claims were basically in line with expectations, coming in at 272K vs. 270K expected. Continuing claims came in slightly lower at 2.253M vs. expectations of 2.260M. These numbers are a non-factor in mortgage bond pricing this morning.
The FNMA benchmark bond closed down 14 basis points, 9 basis points off the low. This morning, it is currently up 14 basis points so if you didn't lock yesterday when I called out the alert, oil is saving your bacon (not to be confused with the commodities in the futures market - a little Trading Places reference). Tomorrow's economic data includes GDP (annualized) and the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. I'll give the same recommendation today that I gave yesterday morning: float with caution (if you / your client's transaction is closing 15+ days out) and keep a close eye on the market, i.e. download my app so that you can get alerts if the market moves against you. You will also get a handy mortgage calculator (they are working on updating it with a few of my recommendations) and important news about real estate and the financial markets that may impact mortgage rates.
I'm always available to help with questions or a mortgage approval. Make it a great day.
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