First of all, I apologize for not getting the update out yesterday!  I know that a lot of you are reading this, so here is today's:

The bonds opened a little flat even though we experienced relevant economic news yesterday with the existing home sales report. With regard to Wall Street, the Dow is currently down about 102 points and the Nasdaq is down about 36 points. The bond market is currently up by .012%.  Due to yesterday's "comeback" on the market, we have seen a very slight improvement in pricing today so far.

The Durable Good Orders for September was released by the Commerce Department which showed a decrease in new orders for larger items of 1.7% (even though it was only anticipated to increase 1.5%).  With regard to the bond market, this shows a bit of a weakness in the manufactoring arena in the overall economy; this is good news for bonds!

On a spot of good psychological news today, the New Home Sales report for September was published and showed an increase in New Home Sales of 4.8% which was somewhat anticipated.  This report is is also positive news for the bond and mortgage markets.  However, the report hasn't had a large influence in trading as much as the durable goods release.

A Labor Department report disclosed 331,000 new claims for unemployment last week; a decline from two weeks ago, but higher than what was estimated.  Once again, this is implied as good news for bonds, but most likely will not effect rates all too much. 

Today, the Treasury auction is being held (5 year Notes will be sold).  As mentioned previously, this will really help measure the investor involvement and interests in the bonds, and could influence a significant rally or decrease in the bonds.  The results were supposed to be posted at 1:00, but I haven't seen them just yet.  If any adjustments are going to be made in trading, we will see it happen in early afternoon to early evening. 

I would definitely look to lock my rates right now prior to the release of the 5-year Note auction numbers.  There is too much variance to be sure exactly what they will do.  So, since I like security, I am locking my loans today!