Updated Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tuesday’s bond market has opened in positive territory despite mixed results from this morning’s two highly important pieces of economic data. The stock markets are showing minor losses with the Dow down 14 points and the Nasdaq down 2 points. The bond market is currently up 12/32, but I don’t believe we will see much of an improvement in this morning’s mortgage rates.

The Commerce Department gave us today’s first report with the release of October's Retail Sales figures. They revealed a 0.5% increase in consumer level spending last month, slightly higher than forecasts. More of a concern though was the 0.6% rise in spending if auto transactions are excluded. That was well above forecasts of a 0.2% increase, meaning that consumers spent more last month than many had thought. That makes the data negative to the bond market and mortgage rates because consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the U.S. economy and weaker economic conditions are when bonds usually thrive.

October's Producer Price Index (PPI) from the Labor Department was today’s second report. It gave us favorable results with a 0.3% decline in the overall index and no change in the more important core data reading. Both of these readings were weaker than what analysts had expected, indicating that inflationary pressures at the producer level of the economy were not a threat last month. Since rising inflation erodes the value of a bond’s future fixed interest payments, lower levels of inflation help make bonds more attractive to investors and keeps mortgage rates low.

Tomorrow also has two reports for the markets to watch. The first is October's Consumer Price Index (CPI) at 8:30 AM ET. This is the sister report of today’s PPI, with the difference being this one measures inflationary pressures at the more important consumer level of the economy. We consider this report as one of the most important reports we get each month. The overall reading is expected to show no change from September’s level while the core data is expected to rise 0.1%. Weaker than expected readings would be good news for bonds and mortgage rates, while larger than forecasted increases could lead to higher mortgage rates tomorrow morning.

October’s Industrial Production data will be posted mid-morning tomorrow. It gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities. It is expected to reveal a 0.4% increase in production, indicating moderate strength in the manufacturing sector. Stronger levels of production would be considered bad news for the bond market and mortgage rates, but this data is not as important as the CPI readings are. A significant surprise in the CPI would likely make this data a non-factor in tomorrow's mortgage pricing.

If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would....
Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days...
Lockif my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days...
Lock if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days...
Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now...