The same interest rate today will probably cost you about .25 less than it did yesterday. This is due to the market gearing up for what it hopes will be a bond-friendly announcement from the Fed (recall that mortgage bonds are directly responsible for interest rates. The higher the price of bonds, the lower the interest rate. So "bond-friendly" for traders is good for you). Traders are hoping that Bernanke will give as firm a verbiage as possible indicating future rate cuts are unlikely. This will

Rates are up sharply this morning as two key economic reports were not favorable to mortgage bond traders. Jobless Claims and Durable Goods Orders (excluding transportation) both came in better than analysts had anticipated. News that is good for the economy in general is usually bad for mortgage rates. This occurs for several reasons, but the most basic of which being that mortgage backed bonds are a fixed income investment similar to treasuries and are usually sought as a "safe haven" from potentially

I hate to sound like a broken record, but it is, yet again, an uneventful day for mortgage rates (so far). There was some data released that seemed to hurt mortgage rates: AMBAC, a large bonds insurer announced a larger than expected loss due to its mortgage related activities. But other economic weakness including corporate profits and a worse than expected report on Mortgage applications is helping to balance things out. Still, we have lost a little ground this morning and the same rate today may

Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS - the bonds that directly relate to mortgage rates), had a rough week last week. By Friday afternoon, they had recouped much of their losses and pushed higher through the end of the day. But it was certainly not enough to get us back to the great rates we were seeing 7 days prior. Friday's post discusses some of the reasons for the weakness, but the main theme was stock market bullishness coupled with persistent inflation data. This week is very light in terms of scheduled

Despite economic tumult, mortgage rates held a very tight range last week. So far this morning, the story is the same. We have lost a little ground from Friday and even from earlier this morning, but overall, the impact will not be huge. The economic factors that bear the most consideration are yet to come this week as the Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, will be released on Wednesday. Higher inflation ruins the returns for investors that back mortgages. This causes rates to rise

Last Friday was great and now this Friday is shaping up to be even better. In the middle of the week, some economic news started a "buzz" on Wall Street that the recession might be dodged and the growth would be returning. Stocks rallied and a booming stock market tends to hurt interest rates, which it did to some extent. But today, the employment situation report has been released which shows very negative numbers for the economy. Unfortunately for the economy, but good for mortgage rates. The reason