This morning jobless claims came in much better then expected. Economists where expecting 550k, but the number came in considerably better at 492k. The 4 week average fell as well to 552k, but continuing claims came in higher at 4.5 million. Normally, this would be bad for mbs, but it appears investors are shrugging off this report. Could be that they don’t believe it since it was much better. Currently mortgage backed securities are trading unchanged from yesterdays going out levels of 5pm

Mortgage backed securities are having a very ugly start to the day. Yesterday, mbs rallied early then sold off to close about where they opened but it appears the downward pressure will continue today. No real cause for the selling other then very light volume and end of year where investors want to go to cash to make the balance sheets look good. Quite often I refer to low volume as a reason for a big swing and the best way I can illustrate that to you is to have you think of baseball. A player

Mortgage backed securities opened basically where they closed on Wednesday. There are no economic reports to be released today and we should see a very low volume of trades. I do not suspect that we will have a rally or a big sell off, much more likely to move sideways until next week. The bond market does close early today at 2pm est. As conditions warrant, I will post back.

So far this morning, mortgage backed securities are up on the day following yesterdays gains. The volume continues to be very light so any large trades can have a bigger impact on overall pricing for the day. The market closes early at 2pm eastern and will be closed all day tomorrow and closes at 2pm on Friday. Now to the data - Durable Orders, this reports the number of new orders placed with domestic manufacturers for goods that are expected to last for at least 3 years. Economists where expecting

We just got the release of the final 3 rd quarter gross domestic product and the number came in right where expected at -0.5%. No reaction from the bond market or stock market on the release. Yesterday was a rough day to be a mortgage backed security as sellers outnumbered buyers and drove the price down almost 1 full point. The only good thing to say about yesterdays trading was the volume was very light and this is to be expected Christmas week as a lot of traders are on vacation. So, we have to

I thought I would write a weekend blog regarding closing costs. We are heading into a refinance boom so many readers are going to be refinancing and many readers are going to ask, should I or should I not pay closing costs? It does not matter what lender or what loan originator you use, when you refinance a home or purchase a home there are closing costs. For example, your credit must be run so the lender can quote you the interest rate you qualify for. When your credit is pulled, it costs money

This morning we get no economic reports. In breaking news, President Bush announced this morning an auto bailout of $13.4b with another $4b in February. This money will only go to GM and Chrysler and it is going to come from the TARP funds. The reason for the sell off this morning, is the TARP funds are supposed to be for housing and banking, not the auto manufacturers. We are also seeing the stock market open higher, which is drawing money out of the bond market. It will be interesting to see if

This morning we will get the final economic reports of the week. Already out are the jobless numbers, economists where expecting 560k claims, but the actual number came in at 554k which is 19k less then last week. Continuing claims remains at levels not seen since Dec. 1982 at 4.38million. In about an hour, we will get Leading Indicators and Philadelphia Fed Index. Unless these reports come in much better then expected they will probably have little to no effect. Yesterday, mortgage backed securities