Austin Mortgage rates moved even lower during the week, as uncertainty about the pace of the economic recovery has increased investor demand for relatively safer assets such as government guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
Stocks are up a hand full, mortgage backs up 2/32’s, and the 10 year note is trading at 3.81%, all positive elements. At least for today. We’ll call the market neutral/bullish yet still feeling the need to keep both hands on the wheel.
Technically, the rally we’ve seen the past couple of days has improved the charts, turning the trend to neutral from bearish. The key here is neutral not bullish, telling us that continued upside (better mortgage pricing) will be a challenge.
Treasury Secretary Geithner is medium rare as the House Oversight Committee is grilling him on AIG. Undisclosed documents, backroom deals, maybe a cover up coordinated with Sir Bernanke, and the counter parties all paid off at par (by the taxpayers) are the hot topics.
Bond prices rose yesterday as stocks suffered another beating. The Dow and bond yields both closed at their lowest levels in a month. Stocks were reacting, in part, to President Obama's renewed focus on reigning in big banks.
This week's economic news was mixed for mortgage markets. A speech from Fed Chief Bernanke pushed mortgage rates lower early in the week, but weak results in the Treasury auctions caused them to turn higher again later in the week. In the end, mortgage rates finished with little net change.
Recently, Fed officials have sent mixed signals about how soon the Fed may need to begin to tighten monetary policy. Wednesday, the Fed's Hoenig said that the Fed should begin raising interest rates "sooner rather than later," and that this action wouldn't end the economic recovery. He explained that the Fed has a long way to go just to return to a neutral monetary stance and that it will take a while for the impact of rate hikes to be felt. Thursday evening, Bernanke held with the stated view that low rates will likely be justified for "an extended period", but he added that the Fed will be ready to remove stimulus as the economy recovers. When the Fed eventually indicates that it's ready to act, Austin mortgage rates will be likely to move higher.
Import Prices fell .2% versus the .8% fall that was [...]
The 10 year note is up 17/32’s (yield 2.72%), mortgage [...]
