Wednesday's bond market opened up in positive territory again despite modest stock gains and a lack of economic news. The stock markets are posting fairly minor gains with the Dow up 25 points and the Nasdaq up 18 points. The bond market is currently up 7/32, which should improve this morning's mortgage rates compared to yesterday's morning rates.

There is no relevant economic data scheduled for release today. However, we will get the minutes from the last FOMC meeting later this afternoon. Market participants will be looking at these minutes closely. They give us insight to the Fed's current thought process and individual Fed member opinions. Any surprises in the 2:00 PM ET release could cause afternoon volatility in the markets and possible changes in mortgage pricing.

Yesterday's 10-year TIPS auction was met with an acceptable demand. That creates some optimism about tomorrow's 10-year Note sale. With a large quantity of new debt being brough t to market, there was some concern about how much interest investors would have in these sales. If the sale goes well tomorrow, we may see bonds move higher again as we head into the holiday weekend.

There are two bits of economic data scheduled for release tomorrow but neither is considered to be of high importance. The first is February's Goods and Service Trade Balance report. This data gives us the size of the U.S. trade deficit, but unless it varies greatly from forecasts, it likely will not cause much movement in mortgage rates. It is expected to show little change from January's $36.0 billion deficit.

The second piece of data will be weekly unemployment figures from the Labor Department. They are expected to show that approximately 655,000 new claims for benefits were filed last week. A much larger or smaller number could influence bond trading enough to slightly affect mortgage rates. But the fact is that this data is not considered to be important because it gives us only a single week's worth of claims.

Also worth noting is an early close for bonds tomorrow ahead of Friday's Good Friday holiday. The markets will reopen Monday morning for regular trading hours. Most lenders will be closed tomorrow also, but if any are working they will likely keep Thursday's afternoon rates until Monday morning.

If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Lock 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.