Bond Market and Real Estate Market

Tuesday's bond market has opened in negative territory following a much stronger than expected piece of economic news. The stock markets are showing relatively minor gains with the Dow up 17 points and the Nasdaq up 4 points. The bond market is currently down 6/32, which should push this morning's mortgage rates higher by approximately .125 of a discount point.The Conference Board, who is a New York-based business research group, reported late this morning that their Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for March stood at 52.5. This was a sizable increase from February's reading and higher than analysts had expected for this month. This means that surveyed consumers felt better about their own financial situations than many had thought. That can be considered bad news for bonds and mortgage rates because it indicates that they may be more willing to spend money, fueling economic activity.Tomorrow's only relevant data is February's Factory Orders. This data is similar to last week's Durable Goods Orders report, except that this report includes orders for both durable and non-durable goods, giving us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength. It is also the least important of this week's five reports. Unless it varies greatly from forecasts of a 0.5% increase, I suspect that it will be a non-factor in the mortgage market.Thursday and Friday brings us the most important data of the week. We will get the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing index late tomorrow morning and March's Employment report from the Labor Department early Friday morning. Both of those reports are considered to be highly important to the financial and mortgage markets, particularly Friday's data.If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock 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.