Last week, there was a definite lack of economic headlines to drive the ride, but the action was still intense for a variety of reasons. Our Mortgage Bonds are purchased by many foreign investors, who are watching global interest rates rise, and contemplating keeping more of their money "closer to home" and investing in their own country, rather than in the US. If they sell off...Mortgage Bonds plunge nauseatingly lower. Additionally, US companies that issue their own Corporate Bonds also buy and sell huge blocks of Treasuries and Mortgage Bonds, which can jolt the Bond market higher or lower on any given day. They do this in an effort to protect their own Corporate Bond issuance against rising interest rates, as they prepare and then sell off their own Corporate Bond issuance. Further, with oil prices ratcheting ever higher, investors pulled money out of Stocks on Friday and sent them swooning lower...but parked the money in Bonds, helping Bonds regain the altitude they'd lost earlier in the week.  For a look into this weeks activity read on in this weeks weekly mortgage update.

Weekly mortgage update.