Weekly Market Commentary

Last week mortgage rates rose steadily throughout the week as the initial impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma settled and investors began to return to concentrating on fundamentals. Last week also saw the markets begin to react with less volatility to North Korea’s continued missile tests.

This week’s main event will likely be the FOMC rate decision on Wednesday. While there is almost no chance of a rate hike, it is widely thought that Fed Chair Janet Yellen will announce the end of Fed reinvestment on Wednesday. Bonds will likely take their lead from Fed Chair Yellen’s press conference and how she steers markets on the chances of a December hike will arguably be more important, as will the latest dot plot changes.  Overseas this week, we are likely to see British prime minister Theresa May outline her latest Brexit vision in Florence on Friday.

Economic Calendar for the week of 09/18/2017 to 09/22/2017:

Monday: NAHB Housing Market Index

Tuesday: Housing Starts, Building Permits, Import Price Index and Export Price Index

Wednesday: MBA Mortgage Applications, Existing Home Sales and FOMC Rate Decision

Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims, Continuing Claims, FHFA House Price Index, Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and Leading Index

Friday: Markit US Manufacturing PMI, Markit US Services PMI, Chicago Fed Nat Activity Index and Dallas Fed Nat Activity Index

Key Market Indicators:

Week Ending Week Ending Week Ending

09/15 09/09 09/01

30 YR APOR 3.82 3.82 3.86

10 Year Yield 2.20 2.051 2.166