Weekly Mortgage Review

Week of January 27, 2013

Mortgage rates began moving upward last week with optimistic news regarding the labor market and some good new coming out of Europe. Weekly claims for unemployment spent a second week in the 330K range, reaching a 5-year low. In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that banks were moving to pay back loans from an ECB program faster than expected. While the Eurozone crisis is certainly far from over, the announcement pulled significant money out of safe-haven, US treasuries and helped drive mortgage rates upward, at the end of the week. This week is a deluge of important economic data for markets to digest. In addition to the first estimate for the 4th quarter’s GDP, Consumer Confidence, the ISM’s Manufacturing Index, and December’s employment data, we also have a Federal Reserve meeting this week. The Fed is not expected to make any policy moves at this meeting, With rates experiencing some updraft from last week, more positive economic news this week may very likely help push mortgage rates even higher.