by Calculated Risk on 4/04/2022 09:11:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Slightly Lower to Begin New Week

Mortgage rates are fresh off their best week since early March in terms of outright improvement. The catch is that they were at the highest levels since late 2018 immediately before that. ... As for today, we can enjoy a very modest improvement in rates and continue to wait for bigger news to cast a bigger vote on whether the next move is higher or lower. [30 year fixed 4.84%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:00 AM ET, Corelogic House Price index for February.

• At 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for February from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $88.7 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $89.7 billion in January.

• At 10:00 AM, the ISM Services Index for March.

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated	65.6%	---	≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)	217.9	---	≥2321
New Cases per Day3	25,074	26,185	≤5,0002
Hospitalized3	10,348	13,574	≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3	572	680	≤502
1 Minimum to achieve "herd immunity" (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts, 37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.

New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all declining.

Average daily deaths are the lowest since early August 2021.