The big fear of oil has calmed down for the moment. This morning investors woke up to $135 a Bbl in overnight trading. Oil has since retreated back to the $130. The 2 big market movers today are unemployment home prices. Unemployment beat estimated by a mere 5,000 last month, but it was enough to give investors the needed boost to start buying stocks again. Home prices also dropped a record 3.1% last quarter, the lowest since they started recording the numbers 17 years ago. Both of these drops have caused havoc to the Bond market, which is down 48 Bp for the day. Since most of that happened before pricing came out, the rates we have already reflect the drop. With a shortened day tomorrow, bond traders are more than likely going to sell rather than buy today and tomorrow. With the bond now below the 100 day moving average, locking rates on any purchase contracts that have been signed is probably the best bet. As always, if anything changes I will let you know.
Karl Menzer
