Mortgage Rates

Mortgage Rates Anthony Hood Equity Investment Capital Office: 949-891-0067 Email: tony@equityinvestmentcapital.com website: www.equityinvestmentcapital.com Mortgage backed securities (MBS) gained +22 basis points from last Friday's close which caused 30 year fixed rates to move slightly lower from the prior week. We had a very positive week for domestic economic data. Durable Goods Orders, Consumer Confidence, Consumer Sentiment, and GDP were all better than expected and showed some nice levels of growth in our economy. Normally, this would cause rates to rise because rates do go up hand-in-hand with economic growth. But instead, rates moved lower...why? This was due to solely to concerns over a U.S. military strike against Syria. Any military action always caused a "flight to safety". This is where domestic and international traders "park" their money in the very low-return but very safe U.S. bond market while they wait out any potential volatility due to the after effects and unintended consequences of any forceful action. This causes a temporary spike in demand for our bonds which in turn, lowers rates. But this type of improvement is only temporary.