Market Comment

Mortgage Bonds have been volatile this morning, opening sharply lower but have since traded back to unchanged levels.
Initial claims for the latest week rose to 434,000, slightly below estimates of 439,000. Continuing Claims fell to 4.8M from 4.9M in the previous week but the number is dropping because people's benefits are expiring and these same people are getting recategorized under emergency extended benefits - which don't count as Continuing Claims.
The report comes ahead of tomorrow’s Non-farm payrolls where it is expected that there were 35,000 jobs lost. This makes the chances of an upside surprise easier to attain, since the bar has now been set lower. And remember that an upside surprise will hurt bond prices. Should the number show job gains - it will be the first month of gains since December 2007.
I feel that the best approach would be to lock ahead of the number.

Leonard Winslow, New American Mortgage, Charlottesville
434-760-2580 (cell)
leonard.winslow@newamerican.com
www.newamerican.com/leonard.winslow
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