Thursday: Housing Starts, Unemployment Claims, Philly Fed Mfg

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Thursday: Housing Starts, Unemployment Claims, Philly Fed Mfg
by Bill McBride on 4/15/2015 08:08:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Having Trouble Moving Lower

    Mortgage rates were unchanged to slightly higher today, though that depends largely on the individual strategies of the lender in question. Some lenders recalled rate sheets yesterday and raised rates due to afternoon market weakness. Those lenders stood a better chance of being unchanged today. Lenders who didn't reprice yesterday never saw the underlying market for mortgage-backed-securities make it back to the same levels from yesterday morning. As such, they would be slightly weaker today (higher in rate or fees). Either way, we're talking about fine-tuning adjustments rather than big-picture shifts. Conventional 30yr fixed rate quotes of 3.625% are still most prevalent for top tier scenarios, followed closely by 3.75%.

Thursday:
At 8:30 AM ET, the initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to decrease to 280 thousand from 281 thousand.

Also at 8:30 AM, Housing Starts for March.  The consensus is for total housing starts to increase to 1.040 million (SAAR) in March.

At 10:00 AM, the Philly Fed manufacturing survey for March. The consensus is for a reading of 5.0, unchanged from 5.0 last month (above zero indicates expansion).