San Diego Home Mortgage Blog

Suggest starting by floating; we normally do that. It is a bear market now however so we will not press it and move to lock mode on any weakness on our San Diego Mortgage Rates. If you float today keep close for our alerts. Unless mortgage markets gain a little traction through the rest of the day we will lock over the weekend.

As we expected, the 10 yr and mortgages opened slightly better this morning with the benchmark 10 yr testing its technical support yesterday and holding it at the 3.50% area. No change in the bearish path however, just a bounce in what we believe will be a range for the note and mortgages of about 25 basis points (3.50%/3.25% on the 10) and 5.00% to 5.25% for 30 yr mtgs. At 9:00 this morning the 10 yr note traded +8/32 at 3.44% -2 BP; mtgs +5/32 (.15 bp). The DJIA futures traded -58 on some weaker than expected earnings reports. At 9:30 the DJIA opened -95; 10 yr +12/32 3.42% -4 BP, mtg prices +5/32.

Prior to the equity market open at 9:30; Sept industrial production was expected to +0.2%, it jumped 0.7% and August production increased from 0.8% to +1.2%. Manufacturing output rose 0.9%, lower than +1.2% in August. Sept capacity utilization, also better than expected, 70.5% against estimates of 69.6%; August capacity use was revised slightly better to 69.9% frm 69.6% originally reported. Manufacturing use increased to 67.5% frm 66.8% in August. The reaction to the better data pushed mortgages backed to unchanged and the 10 yr note from +8/32 to unchanged.

At 9:55 the U. of Michigan consumer sentiment index, expected at 74.0 frm 73.5 at the end of Sept, was lower at 69.4. The 12 month outlook question on the survey fell to 79 frm 88.0 at the end of Sept; consumer expectations at 67.6 frm 73.5 at the end of Sept. The survey is subject to wide variations at times, but does take some wind from the sales and reminds consumers are still not in the game of recovery being so heavily bet in the equity markets. No real positive reaction to the report in the bond and mortgage markets but the DJIA fell 10 points on the report.

The stock market is opening lower this morning on reports from BofA and GE; BofA took another $1B loss for the quarter, the second this year. Loan defaults drove the losses. GE made a profit by cost cutting but its revenues fell short of expectations.

Treasury reported August net foreign purchases of US debt. A total of $32.9B in August; $21.3B by private foreign investors, $11.6B by foreign "official" institutions (central banks) and $4.3B by US residents. No need to look any farther as to who is supporting US deficits.

Being Friday trade will likely have a narrow range through the remainder of the day. The wider outlook is bearish for the bond and mortgage markets; the shorter view however is a little better after the 10 yr note managed to hold its first key support at 3.50% yesterday. Still looking for a trading range on the note and mortgages of about 25 basis points; 3.25% to 3.50% on the 10 yr and 5.00% to 5.25% for mortgage rates. So far this morning mortgage markets are somewhat soft.