Mortgage rate outlook and market preview for the week starting March 12th 2012.
This week we have a FOMC meeting followed by a statement, 5 relevant US economic reports, and some Treasury auctions. It will be interesting to see the statement after the FOMC meeting tomorrow as the members seem to be divide on how our economy is doing and what needs to be done. Some members are calling for rates to be raised before the 2014 mark which was set at the last meeting, and other are calling for more quantitative easing which would keep rates low. The economic reports being released this week are PPI and CPI, Philly Fed business index (expected to have improved in March), Feb retail sales (+0.7%), and Feb data on manufacturing with industrial production and capacity utilization.
As far as Europe and their debt crisis, Greece got its bail out money so it could avoid a default, but many are still considering it a default because of the large write down bond holders had to agree to. At the time I am writing this the 10 year US Treasury bond yield is just over 2% and is still in the narrow trading range it has been stuck in since November. Unless there are any shocking announcements made after Tuesday’s FOMC meeting I don’t see mortgage rates moving much this week. As I have said before I think we have seen the low for mortgage rates, but I don’t think they are moving higher for a while.
Tags: 10 year US Treasury bond yield, Europe debt crisis, FOMC statement, Greek bailout, market preview, mortgage rates outlook