News You'll Use

Mortgage rates moved higher this week as we had minimal top tier data, and we had more Fed speakers who guided the market to expect a 25-bps rate hike from the Fed in their May 2nd-3rd FOMC meeting. We saw plenty of Fed speakers this week and almost all of them had the same message that inflation is still too high and that they need to raise rates in May to cool off inflation and the economy. The Fed is in their quiet period next week so it is assumed that the data would need to come in very weak to deter them from raising rates in May. Key data points that the Fed and markets will be paying attention to is Real GDP and the PCE Deflator. The PCE Deflator is the Fed's favorite measure of inflation.

• US 10-year Treasury closed at 3.53% on Thursday afternoon

• Housing Starts came in higher than analyst's expectations (-0.8% m/m vs expectations of -3.5%)

• Building Permits came in lower than analyst's expectations (-8.8% m/m vs expectations of -6.5%)

• Philly Fed Index came in lower than analyst's expectations (-31.3 vs expectations of -19.3)

• Existing Home Sales came in lower than market expectations (-2.4% vs expectations of -1.8%)

• Initial Jobless Claims came in above analyst's expectations (245k claims vs expectations of 240k claims)

• Mortgage Applications fell 8.8% this week