Initial Weekly Jobless claims lower than expected

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Published Date 5/23/2024

Today's Mortgage Rate Summary

How Rates Move:

Conventional and Government (FHA and VA) lenders set their rates based on the pricing of Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) which are traded in real time, all day in the bond market. This means rates or loan fees (mortgage pricing) moves throughout the day, being affected by a variety of economic or political events. When MBS pricing goes up, mortgage rates or pricing generally goes down. When they fall, mortgage pricing goes up.

Rates Currently Trending: Higher

Mortgage rates are moving higher today. The MBS market worsened by -10 bps yesterday. This was not enough to increase mortgage rates or fees. The market experienced low volatility yesterday.

Today's Rate Forecast: Neutral

Housing: We will get April New Home Sales at 10 am ET.

Jobs: Initial Weekly Jobless Claims were lower than expected, Weekly Claims were 215K versus estimates of 220K. The four week moving average ticked up a smidge to 219K. Continuing Claims remained below 1.8M with at 1.794M reading.

The Fed: Today we will hear from Bostic again. The April Chicago Fed National Activity Index was dismal, contracting by -0.23. The prior month (March) was originally in positive territory with a reading of 0.15 but it was revised back into negative territory of -0.4.

Today's Potential Rate Volatility: High

This morning markets are moving towards higher rates. Volatility is high but should mellow some towards the end of the day.

Bottom Line:

If you are looking for the risks and benefits of locking your interest rate in today or floating your loan rate, contact your mortgage professional to discuss it with them.

Source: TBWS

All information furnished has been forwarded to you and is provided by thetbwsgroup only for informational purposes. Forecasting shall be considered as events which may be expected but not guaranteed. Neither the forwarding party and/or company nor thetbwsgroup assume any responsibility to any person who relies on information or forecasting contained in this report and disclaims all liability in respect to decisions or actions, or lack thereof based on any or all of the contents of this report.

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