This weeks Financial Calendar

 The million dollar question when you are in the process of buying your home and put in your mortgage application: "should I lock or Should I float?"  Here is this weeks news to help you make that decision:

This is a busy week on the financial calendar and it promises to have potential for a bumpy ride. Sunday the Fed Governors and the Treasury announced that they would lend money and buy stock to support Fannie and Freddie. These comments will insure a flow of capital in the mortgage market and makes it very clear that the Fed is supportive of both Fannie and Freddie and will protect their mission of providing financing for residential home purchases.

What it all amounts to is the sky is NOT falling in the mortgage industry as the media would lead us to believe... But if you have read any of my blogs you know the "respect" I have for your typical negative journalism!

Tuesday the 15th and Wednesday the 16th are the big days of the week with Producer Price index (PPI) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) being the big events of the week.

• PPI on Tuesday is expected to have a 1.3% surge and a core* rate of +.3%.  the most likely scenario is that we will see the core rate match the estimate and will see little market reaction to the number
• CPI on Wednesday will most likely be the true indicator of interest rate direction with an anticipated increase of +.7% and a core increase of +.2%. once again it is anticipated that the consensus estimate will match the real number, in that case we will not see a big move, it is always the surprise in a number that causes movement in a market, the "guess" is typically priced in.
• Also on Tuesday is the retail sales number, it is not anticipated to have any effect on the market especially since it will be thrown off by the economic stimulus checks that have been in every one's mail box.
• Fed Chairman Bernake has double duty Tuesday and Wednesday as he testifies in front of the Senate banking committee and the House Financial Services committee, not anticipated to be much more than a "ho-hum" from the markets
• Thursday has Initial jobless claims from last week and June Housing starts.  Neither are anticipated to have any impact on mortgage rates

*the core rate removes the volatile pieces of the numbers, food and energy to come up with a more stable and reliable number

While it is a busy week, Tuesday and Wednesday have the most potential for moving the markets, and it is probably a wise move to advise locking loans at this point since Today was a great day and we saw some improvement in rates already.

I hope this helps!

Rob

Robert Rauf

www.RobertRaufHomeLoans.com

(732)740-0175