Mortgage Market Update for the week of June 30, 2008

Here is the Mortgage Market Update for the week of June 30, 2008 brought to you by Larry Iest of Hemet Mortgage.

LAST WEEK

The big news last we was the action, or inaction, of the Federal Reserve. The Fed decided to leave their Fed Funds rate unchanged at 2%. The Fed is fighting between a weakening dollar and a slowing economy against ever increasing energy prices. The DOW was in a free fall last week ending the week way down as oil topped $140 per barrel. With the DOW dropping this caused some money to flow out of stocks into the bond market helping mortgage rates improve slightly for the week.

THIS WEEK

This week we have a holiday shortened week with the market closed Friday in observance of the Independence Day holiday. All eyes this week will be on the Department of Labors jobs report for June. Traders will be watching all aspects of this report and the bond market paying close attention to the inflationary components. The other important reports this week will be Monday's Chicago PMI and Tuesday's ISM index. Both of these reports attempt to measure the strength or weakness of the manufacturing sector.