Stocks at Record Highs…. Again

It’s another day or record breaking highs for the stock market which is again sucking life out of the mortgage bond market. Today is expected to be a light trading day as many large investors will be taking an extended holiday vacation. The lack of trading volume can exaggerate smaller moves.

Today’s Unemployment Report showed that there were 222,000 new claims last week. Given that it was the week before Christmas, that is a larger number than I would have expected to see. Generally, employers do all they can to avoid the stigma of laying off just before Christmas. I expect we will see a very light report next Thursday when this week’s claims are announced.

Given that it will be a slow day, I don’t much hope for significant improvement to rates. We will maintain a locking bias.