Locking Bias

The stock market continues its euphoric intoxication, as investors push the stock indexes to new all-time highs.  This has added pressure to the bond market, pushing interest rates higher as investors sell their bonds to buy more stocks.

The second in the week’s trifecta of employment reports was released this morning.  New unemployment claims came in at 323,000 for last week, which is down 26,000 from last week and much better than expectations of 338,000.  The Mac Daddy of all employment reports comes tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. MST when the BLS will release its estimate of new job creations for the month of February.  The market is anticipating somewhere in the range of 150,000 new jobs created.  The results of this report will likely play a meaningful role in the direction of interest rates in the days and weeks to come, so make sure to place your positions today if you have a lock or float decision to make.

Given the extreme volatility in surrounding tomorrow’s report, we will continue with our locking recommendation.  Stay tuned tomorrow, we will let you know the results of the big employment report and the impact it will have on mortgage rates.