Mortgage Rates

Mortgage Rates Anthony Hood Equity Investment Capital Office: 949-891-0067 Email: tony@equityinvestmentcapital.com website: www.equityinvestmentcapital.com Mortgage backed securities (MBS) lost -68 basis points from Monday's close which caused 30 year fixed rates to move upward for the second straight trading session. MBS started the day with a -36BPS sell off (higher for you) even before the first U.S. economic report hit the wires. This was partially due to a carry over from Monday's momentum that was driven by tapering fears in the bond market. It was also partially due to a better than expected Sentiment data out of Germany. Remember, as we get better news out of Europe...MBS will sell off causing mortgage rates to rise. We had a mixed bag with yesterday morning's economic data. The headline Retail Sales data came in just a little lighter than market expectations (0.2% vs est of 0.3%) but the prior period was revised upward from 0.4% to 0.6%. Retail Sales Ex Autos were 0.5% vs est of 0.4%. Still, Retail Sales were up and not down and that also provided some slight pressure on pricing. Import Prices were lower than expected (0.2% vs 0.6%). This was very low if viewed on an inflationary basis and a slight positive for bonds but this report and the weaker than expected Business Inventories were overshadowed by the traction that Europe is gaining. The theme for yesterday was two-fold. 1) Bond traders' speculation that the Fed would begin tapering in September and 2) Growing sentiment among economists that Europe is about to emerge from their recession.