Rate Update October 13, 2010

Mortgage rates are worse this morning.

We hadn’t talked much about 3rd quarter earnings season which is now underway here on ‘rate update’ but this morning earnings reports from JP Morgan Chase & Intel are lifting stocks and hurting mortgage rates.

Surprisingly, yesterday’s 3-year Treasury note auction was not as strong as the markets were expecting.  Today the US Treasury will auction $21 billion of 10-year notes.  Following yesterday’s performance I have some concern that another weak auction could pressure rates higher.

Technically, mortgage-backed bonds had become overbought in the past couple days so to se rates move modestly higher isn’t a huge surprise.  I still believe that an announcement regarding further quantitative easing could help rates move a little lower.

Current outlook: near-term locking bias, long-term float