A Smorgasbord of Economic Reports this Shortened Week

Another day, another stock market record high run fueled by continued trade war optimism.  This sounds like a broken record at this point.  It makes me wonder just how much more juice this topic can have over the influence of the stock market.  At some point, a trade agreement needs to be priced into the market so that we can get back to a point where stock prices are set based on the long term outlook of corporate America health.  All this is doing is over-inflating an already top heavy stock market.  I believe we’ve surpassed the point of this being an unhealthy market.  The term “Irrational Exuberance” seems to best explain how I feel about the market.

Being the week of Thanksgiving, the stock and bond markets will be closed on Thursday and have a shortened day on Friday.  However, there is no shortage of scheduled economic reports.  Most importantly, Wednesday will bring an update on GDP along with an update on consumer inflation via the Fed’s favorite gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) rate.  These are two of the most influential economic reports that impact mortgage interest rates.

Mortgage bonds remain in the same tight trading range.  Once thing I know is that a breakout is coming.  It’s too early to say in which direction.  Therefore, we have to assume it will be the path of least resistance, which is not good news for mortgage interest rates.  Unless we see bond prices break above the current ceiling, we will maintain our locking bias.