Rate Update September 4, 2009

Mortgage rates may open a little higher this morning.

Headed into this morning’s employment report mortgage-backed bonds sold off yesterday afternoon pushing rates slightly higher.

Job losses in July were lower than analysts’ had expected.  Typically, when the job loss/ creation number is better than expected mortgage rates rise on the news.  However, embedded in the report were to other factors which may moderate the negative impact.

First, the report also revised higher job losses previously reported for June.  Furthermore, the unemployment rate rose to 9.5%.  We are shifting our outlook to a locking bias.

Current outlook: locking bias