Mortgage markets improved last week in low-volume trading.
Between Monday to Thursday, Wall Street focused on the upcoming jobs reports and mortgage markets gained while traders jockeyed for position. Mortgage rates drifted lower through Thursday afternoon. But, then, after a better-than-expected Non-Farm Payrolls report Friday morning, mortgage markets — and mortgage rates — reversed.
Overall, mortgage rates dropped last week, but only by a small margin. Rates were best Thursday afternoon.
It was the second consecutive week in which mortgage rates fell.
Last week was also interesting in that both stock markets and bond markets improved, proving that rates don’t always rise when stock prices do. 455 of the S&P 500 companies posted gains last week.
This week, without much data to influence traders, the direction for bonds is uncertain. But we do have a double-layer of technical Support just low current prices. We’ll see the Consumer Confidence numbers on Tuesday and Retail Sales on Friday. Beyond that, there’s not much else.
Click here to read my “45-Day Interest Rate Prediction.”