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) gained +28 basis points from last Friday's close which caused 30 year fixed rates to move lower. We had a fairly light week in terms of the number of economic releases and there were no major U.S. Treasury auctions to guide bond trades. It was a very choppy week as MBS sold off on Monday (higher rates), rebounded Tuesday (lower rates) and then sold off again on Wednesday (higher rates). On Friday, MBS rallied (better rates). We had a mixed bag of housing data as Existing Home Sales were much stronger than expected, while New Home Sales were much weaker than expected. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) released the minutes from their last meeting. While it didn't provide any clear direction on the Fed's time table to start reducing their monthly bond purchases, it did appear as though a larger percentage of the voting members were open to some sort of taper in September. Friday's rally gave you the best rates of the week. This was due to the Fed's Bullard making a comment that the Fed can "afford to be deliberate" about their timing of reducing their monthly bond purchases. The rally was accelerated by a much weaker than expected New Home Sales report.