Tuesday’s bond market has opened down slightly with stocks starting the week with mixed results. The Dow is currently up 38 points while the Nasdaq has lost 2 points. The bond market is currently down 3/32, which will likely push this morning’s mortgage rates higher by approximately .125 of a discount point over Friday’s pricing.

There is no relevant economic data scheduled for release today, so look for the stock markets to be the biggest influence on the bond market and mortgage rates. The financial markets were closed yesterday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but there isn’t too much to be concerned with this week anyhow. The shortened week and a lack of major economic data should help keep mortgage rates relatively calm the next couple of days unless we see significant gains or losses in the major stock indexes.

The rest of the week brings us the release of only three pieces of economic data to dig est, with none of them considered to be highly important to the markets or mortgage rates. Tomorrow’s release of December's Housing Starts will be the first. It helps us measure housing sector strength and future mortgage credit demand by tracking construction starts of new homes. It is not considered to be one of the more important releases we see each month, so I don’t see it causing much movement in mortgage rates tomorrow.

Overall, either today or Friday will probably be the least active days for mortgage rates with nothing of relevance scheduled to be posted. The most important day will likely turn out to be Thursday with two monthly reports scheduled (in addition to weekly unemployment figures). But, I don’t see rates moving significantly any day unless something unexpected happens in the markets. Accordingly, I am keeping the optimistic approach towards floating an interest rate, at least for the time being.

If I were considerin g financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Float 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.