Nashville Mortgage Rates Update- 1/10/12

Nashville Mortgage Rates

Another day with little movement in the bond and mortgage markets.  The 10 year note continues to find support when it runs to 2.00% as it did early this morning, although supported technically, fundamentally there is nothing new that entices traders and investors to buy.  The mortgage market is testing its resistance level when the Jan price climbs to $103.13 as did this morning.  The equity market today was better, but it too is not running with much demand.  The debate over the outlook for interest rates is intensifying recently with traders sticking to treasuries, concerned that another show will drop in Europe, while investors are being pushed to stocks by many analysts and firms believing the U.S. economy will continue to improve.  The problem with that is that the employment market is still extremely soft and the housing sector (nationally) remains in peril with prices still falling;  in our mind it is difficult to build a case for much growth.

Tomorrow there are no scheduled economic releases; at 1 pm EST the Treasury will auction $21 billion on 10 year notes.  Will bidding take it over 2.00% yield?  At 2 tomorrow the Fed will release it beige Book with details from each Fed district;  normally there is not much new in the Book, however markets do pay attention.

Stuck, no real movement in the interest rates markets although the technical outlook, while fragile, continues to hold a very slight bullish bias.  The mortgage backed security markets have out-performed treasuries recently, not much better, but a little better.  Traders who are “long” treasuries are beginning to sweat a little, the longer one stays in a position that isn’t moving, the more concern increases.  Nothing but the same old chatter from Europe, just more meetings with rose-colored comments at conclusions.  No new economic date so far this week, we won’t see any data until Thursday.

Check back later this week for the next installment of Nashville Mortgage Rates Updates.  Oh yeah, and congrats to the Crimson Tide- you were unbelievable in your win over LSU in the National Championship last night.  Wished Saban would want to go to Tennessee, but I’m sure we couldn’t afford him anyway!