Rate Update March 18, 2010

Mortgage rates are mostly unchanged from yesterday.

The Labor Department followed up yesterday’s tame reading of the Producer Price Index with a tame Consumer Price Index (CPI) report today.  This morning’s CPI report showed that prices at the retail level of our economy grew only modestly last month.  Weak inflationary data is good news for mortgage rates.

The rest of the economic data released this morning was mostly in line with expectations so the markets have not had any knee-jerk reactions.

From a technical perspective mortgage-backed bond (MBS) prices have finished higher each day this week.  Prices are near the recent highs from March 5th.  I continue to recommend a locking position.

Current outlook: locking bias