Market Commentary

Wednesday’s bond market has opened in positive territory with the stock markets showing early losses. The Dow is currently down 23 points while the Nasdaq has lost 16 points. The bond market is currently up 6/32, which should keep this morning’s mortgage rates at yesterday’s morning levels.

There is no relevant economic data to be posted today, so this morning’s trading is being driven by stock movement and speculation about today’s semi-annual congressional testimony of Fed Chairman Bernanke. He was originally scheduled to speak at 10:00 AM ET, but that has been pushed back to 2:00 PM ET. His testimony will be to Senate Banking Committee today and the House Financial Services Committee Thursday morning.

This event will be televised and watched very closely by market participants and analysts. We usually see the most movement in rates during the first day of this semi-annual testimony since his prepared words for both appearances are usually quite similar to each other, meaning that the second day of testimony rarely gives us anything we did not hear during the first day.

The National Association of Realtors will post June’s Existing Home Sales figures late tomorrow morning. This report gives us a measurement of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand, but as with all of this week’s data it is not considered highly important. Current forecasts are calling for a decline in sales from May’s totals. A larger than expected drop in sales would be considered good news for bonds and mortgage rates because a weak housing sector will make it difficult for the economy to recover anytime soon. However, unless this data varies greatly from forecasts it probably will not cause much of a change in mortgage rates.

June’s Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) at 10:00 AM will also be posted late tomorrow. This Conference Board index attempts to measure economic activity over the next three to six months. While it is not a factual report, it still is considered to be of moderate importance to the bond market. It is expected to show a 0.4% decrease, meaning that we may see noticeable pullback in economic activity over the next few months. A larger decline in the index would be good news for the bond and mortgage markets.

If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would…. Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days… Float if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days… Float if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days… Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now…