The mortgage market is drifting aimlessly this morning as investors await the details of this afternoon's $13 billion 30-year bond sale. The Treasury Department will conclude the sale promptly at 1:00 p.m. ET.
If this offering is aggressively bid by the global investment community - look for mortgage interest rates to remain very near current levels.
If the government finds it necessary to push the yield to investors up by accepting lower priced bids for this batch of 30-year bonds -- mortgage interest rates will almost certainly edge higher.
The number of workers filing new applications with the government for unemployment benefits fell by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 462,000 during the week ended March 6th. For the week ending February 20th, the latest period for which data is available, enrollment in extended benefits programs decreased by more than 15,000 while the number of people participating in the government's Unemployment Compensation Program fell by 159,000.
The weekly jobless claims data is not yet pointing to a meaningful labor market recovery - a condition that is unlikely to develop until the number of initial claims falls below 400,000 on a week-over-week basis. For the time being this data series remains supportive of steady to perhaps fractionally lower mortgage interest rates.
This week's economic calendar hasn't offered mortgage investors anything substantial to chew-on - but that will change tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. when the Commerce Department releases the February Retail Sales figures. The consensus estimate is currently forecasting the pace of retail sales was 0.2% lower last month while sales excluding autos are expected to post a very modest gain of 0.1%.
If the consensus estimate is accurate, the February retail sales data will likely prove to be supportive of steady mortgage interest rates. Should the actual February retail sales headline figure post a gain of 0.1% or more and the ex. auto component shows a gain 0.3% or more -- look for mortgage investors to push interest rates fractionally higher
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