From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Start The Week Back Near Recent Highs
[R]ates were near 8% when the Nov/Dec rally began and fell into the 6.6s by December 14th. They’re currently still well under 7%, meaning that a vast majority of the improvement has been retained despite the modest erosion. [30 year fixed 6.77%]
emphasis added
Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.
• At 8:30 AM, Retail sales for December is scheduled to be released. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in retail sales.
• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for December. The consensus is for a 0.1% decrease in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to decrease to 78.6%.
• At 10:00 AM, The January NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 38, up from 37 in December. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.
• At 2:00 PM, the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.