Mortgage rates are unchanged from the beginning of the week.
This morning’s retails sales report showed that consumer purchases in the month of February grew slightly more than economists had expected. Good news for the economy is often bad news for mortgage rates. However, also embedded in the report was a negative revision to the previously released figures for January. Taken together the report was a mixed bag.
In a separate report the number of people filing for first-time jobless benefits decreased to the lowest level in 3 months. The weekly report issued by the Labor Department is volatile in nature so we’ll need a couple more of these for it to impact mortgage rates.
I will continue to maintain a floating position mainly due to the technical trading patterns in the rate markets. A look at the chart above demonstrates that the yield on the US 10-year treasury yield has traded along the 50-day moving average. As long as this technical pattern continues I believe we could see another .125%-.25% improvement to mortgage rates. Should the 10-year yield reverse and close above this level I will immediately shift my outlook to locking.
Current Outlook: floating