Friday's bond market has opened in positive territory despite modest stock gains and stronger than expected economic news. The stock markets are showing early gains with the Dow up 42 points and the Nasdaq up 10 points. The bond market is currently up 7/32, which will likely improve this morning's mortgage rates slightly.

There were two pieces of data released this morning. The first was Industrial Production data for July, which showed an increase of 0.2%. That was higher than expected and indicates that manufacturing activity was stronger than thought. This is bad news for the bond market and mortgage rates, but since this data is considered only moderately important, its impact on rates has been minimal.

The second report of the day was the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for August. It showed a reading of 61.7 that was a drop from July's final reading but was stronger than expected. The higher level of sentiment mean s consumers are more apt to make large purchases than analysts had thought, but again, this was not enough of a variance and the data is not important enough to have much of an influence on this morning's mortgage rates.

Next week brings us only a couple of economic reports for the markets to digest with only one being considered highly important. There is no relevant data scheduled to be posted Monday, but look for ore details on next week's events in Sunday's weekly preview.

If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Float if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Float if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days... Float if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.

©Mortgage Commentary 2008