Mortgage Rates Moving Slightly Lower

Mortgage rates are moving slightly lower so far today. At 11:00AM, the MBSs are in positive territory and the 10yr is where it opened at 2.47%.  Yesterday, we saw the same scenario with low volatility.

The 4th QTR Employment Cost Index increased by 0.5% from the 3rd to 4th QTRS. The November Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed a YOY gain of 5.3% which was higher than estimates of 5.0%. This is a small sample size of 20 metro-city areas. The national Existing Home Sales median price is a better indicator.

Chicago PMI came in with a big miss as the regional reading came in at 50.3 vs estimate of 55.0. Any reading above 50.0 is expansionary, so this reading still showed growth but at a much slower clip than in December. Consumer Confidence January reading came close to the estimate, but was a very strong reading. In fact, it was the second highest reading since 2007.

The FOMC meeting is underway; nothing until tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 pm.

President Trump is expected to name his choice for the Supreme Court today, and more than likely it will not go down well for Democrats and will set off weeks of debate before any confirmation vote occurs.

Last few trading days the mortgage rate market has been very stable.  However, we still see a high potential for big swings in mortgage rates from day to day because we are in the lower level of the mortgage rate channel.