Mortgage Rates Showing Little Movement Thus Far in a Short Trading Week

We are going to have a short week, as by Wednesday most will have gone to Grandma’s house for turkey, cranberries, and sage dressing (oyster dressing?). In the meantime, at 11:00AM, the 10yr note yield started down, but is up to 2.32%, which is still below Friday’s close.  MBS, even though more positive early this morning is still a plus 18BPSEarly trading in stock indexes a little weaker but not much.

This week’s key data starts tomorrow with October existing and new home sales.  We also get the FOMC minutes from the 11/2 meeting and Treasury will auction $88B of 2s, 5s and 7s beginning today with $26B of 2s at Noon.

No major news over the weekend and Trump still vetting for his key positions. No new announcements.

Crude oil higher today on reports Iraq will offer three new proposals at a meeting in Vienna this coming week. Back again, talk of cutting production has not led to anything significant for years. Oil traders though still respect OPEC because it is difficult to handicap what it will announce, more importantly will any agreement actual last more than a month or two. Still don't believe OPEC has the power to stick with any cuts. Turn your back and the pumps will run full blast. All OPEC countries and even Russia need dollars, and they cannot get them by cutting the supply, even though the price decline lessens revenue – half a loaf is better than none.

The dollar taking a break this morning; the index -0.51, unchanged against the yen, weaker against the euro and British pound. Dollar at the highs going back to June 2013. Not what US domestic manufacturers want but we have not noticed much concern so far in the optimistic economic outlook in 2017.

This is a short week for mortgage rates.  With the thinner trading volumes, you can see exaggerated movement in mortgage rates.  Given mortgage rates increased volatility over the last two weeks - I expect the trend to continue