Mortgage Rate Update November 18, 2013

Posted on by Evan in Rate Update

Mortgage note rates are unchanged from Thursday but the accompanying closing costs are slightly less so in fact the rate environment has improved modestly.

Over the past week mortgage rates have recovered all the losses caused by the stronger than expected jobs report released on Friday, November 8th.  Despite the growth in jobs for October the markets believe that the Fed will leave quantitative easing (QE) in place at least through the new year.  In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 16,000 earlier today for the first time.  Both stocks and bonds benefit from the Fed’s QE policy.

We’ll likely learn more about the Fed’s outlook this week.

NEW YORK FED PRESIDENT IS SCHEDULED TO SPEAK TODAY.
NEW YORK FED PRESIDENT IS SCHEDULED TO SPEAK TODAY.

 Today there are a few Fed officials scheduled to speak including New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley.  On Wednesday the Fed will release the minutes from their last monetary policy meeting.  Any indication that the Fed plans to taper QE sooner rather than later would hurt mortgage rates and vice versa.

From a technical standpoint mortgage rates may be at the best levels they will reach without any updates news.  The US 10-year treasury yield is set to do battle with the 50-day & 100-day moving averages both of which are important technical levels of support.

I am going to recommend locking in.

Current Outlook: locking