News You'll Use

Mortgage rates rose this week due to stronger GDP numbers for Q2, along with headlines from Japan that their Central Bank would discuss tightening their monetary policy. The market reaction may have gone too far in the sell-off, but we will see if mortgage rates, and bonds can rally in the coming weeks. We have jobs data next week, and the takeaway from the Fed is that they are very data dependent. If the economy continues to be resilient, then the Fed will most likely raise rates again this year. If the data starts to weaken a bit, then they will not raise rates. There are no talks for rate cuts anytime soon. We will likely not see a rate cut until Q1 or Q2 of 2024 at the earliest. For the time being, to see lower mortgage rates we need the data to come in weaker, specifically labor market data and inflation data.

• US 10-year Treasury closed at 4.0% on Thursday afternoon

• S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Index came in higher than analyst's expectations (0.99% m/m vs expectations of 0.7% m/m)

• Conference Board Consumer Confidence came in higher than analyst's expectations (117.0 vs expectations of 112.0)

• FHFHA House Price Index came in higher than analyst's expectations (0.7% m/m vs expectations of 0.6% m/m)

• New Home Sales came in lower than analyst's expectations (697,000 vs expectations of 725,000)

• Q2 GDP came in higher than analyst's expectations (2.4% q/q vs expectations of 1.8% q/q)

• Durable Goods Orders came in higher than analyst's expectations (4.7% m/m vs expectations of 1.3% m/m)

• Pending Home Sales came in higher than analyst's expectations (0.7% m/m vs expectations of 0.4% m/m)

• Initial Jobless Claims came in lower than analyst's expectations (221k claims vs expectations of 235k claims)

• Mortgage Applications fell 1.8% this week