Mortgage Rate Update November 19, 2015

Mortgage rates are essentially unchanged from the beginning of the week.

Yesterday the minutes from the last Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting showed that the Fed does intend on raising short-term rates at the December 15th-16th meeting as the markets have been expecting.  That said, the Fed did leave themselves an out by stating that a very weak jobs report or an unexpected geopolitical event could alter the plan.

The markets have essentially already priced in a Fed rate hike in December so in and of itself that even should not change interest rates.  That said, their comments from now until then and other economic releases could influence rates.

There are no more economic data points set for release this week.  Therefore, we’d expect mortgage rates to react to technical trading patterns.  At this point mortgage-backed bonds and the yield on the US 10-year treasury note are trading in between a wide range and momentum appears to be favorable.  I will recommend floating into next week but given that trading desks on Wall Street will likely be vacated after Monday (holiday week) we could see some volatility.

Current Outlook: locking bias