This is actually a pretty light schedule for the beginning of the month. The big news doesn't come out till the end of the week. For now the movement will be mostly based on Government intervention along with stock market ups and downs. Here is this weeks Calendar

• Monday, Dec 8: No News today
• Tuesday, December 9th Mortgage backed securities roll to next month. Not an issue
• Tuesday: NJ, NY, PA Triple Play Real estate convention starts. No issues with rates here, I will just be there for a few days
• Wednesday, December 10: October Wholesale Inventories, Expected -0.2%. This is stale data, doubtful it will be looked at
• Thursday, December 11: Initial Jobeless claims, expected +16,000. This is an every Thursday number. Not likely to show any surprises into the market or to move rates.
• Thursday: Treasury auction of $20 BILLION 10 yr notes. Excess supply in the market is never a good thing. Could cause prices to drop and yields to creep up.
• Friday December 12: Producer price Index (PPI), expected -2% and a core of =0.1%. This is probably the biggie of the week. Energy prices have come down considerably, (thus the low number. as always the core is the important piece. an obvious decline in the core may cause rates to drop slightly.
• Friday December 12: November Retail Sales, Expected -1.9% Ex Auto -1.7%. It will not be a surprise to see retail sales in the toilet, The consensus estimate is accurate it is likely we will see steady to fractionally lower rates.

as mentioned above, the roller coaster stock market with its ups and downs are likely to cause ups and downs in mortgages. If the equities markets are doing well, look for the credit markets to sell off a bit. Unless we get a big surprise in one of the numbers, the data will take a back seat to the excess supply in the market. One thing to note: Last Friday Uncle Sam started to buy mortgages (to the Tune of $5billion) as promised. It is expected that they will be stepping-in, in a big way by the end of they year. I do not anticipate that they will dump the $500billion all at once, but the market does expect to see them presence in the market soon. Last weeks Rumors of a 4.5% rate are still just rumors. If we see it come it is anticipated to be ONLY for purchase loans (good thing) and quite possibly with significant restrictions. Time will tell.

 Have a great week,

Rob

Robert Rauf

(732)223-1630 x102

Real Estate Mortgage Network