Rate Update April 4, 2010

Mortgage rates are mostly unchanged from Friday.

Friday’s healthy jobs report helped pressure mortgage rates higher.  Today equities are joining in as the stock market reopens after being closed for Good Friday.

The US Treasury is back on the auction block this week.  They are set to auction $82 billion in debt securities.  If you’ll remember back two weeks ago interest rates crept higher on weaker than expected demand for these auctions.  With yields slightly higher it will be interesting to see if foreign buyers step back into the market.  If not, expect rates to continue to creep higher.

From a technical standpoint mortgage-backed bonds (MBS’s) are currently wildly over-sold.  I am going to shift my outlook to a floating position for the first time in a long time with the expectation that rates will recoup some of their losses.

Current outlook: neutral