The Veridian Blog

Over the past two or three weeks, the bond market has shown a growing bias towards higher rates.  That bias only grew stronger last week after consumer and manufacturing sentiment reported higher than expected numbers.  The week ended during a shortened Good Friday session that saw the nation's unemployment rate remain unchanged at 9.7%.  More significant, jobless claims rose 162,000, but still less than many had forecasted at 184,000.  Any way we look at it, the economy is still heading in the right direction. 

This week is fairly light as far as scheduled economic reports.  Other than the FOMC meeting minutes and a couple of Treasury auctions, look for the stock markets to heavily influence bond trading and mortgage rates.  The benchmark 10-year Note has fallen out of favor and yesterday's yield hit 4.00% - the highest in over a year :-(  It might indeed  be time for me to go on vacation soon :-)