Last Week's Economic Retrospective:

Last week's economic news focused on the housing sector with the July New and Existing Home Sales numbers.

Fed Chairman Bernanke's economic tweaking seems to have caused an "orderly slowdown"; just as predicted. The number of both New and Existing homes sold came in slightly lower than expected and the number of month's housing inventory or supply available of each rose as well.

But across the board, home prices are still up over the past year. This is good news for home owners. The median home price in the US is now $230,000.

Overall though, Bond prices and home loan rates have been absolutely flat for the past seven trading days. Besides the New and Existing home numbers, traders did not have much economic news to react too.

The seasonably lower volume has added to the sluggish market activity. But this quiet period could be the calm before the storm, as this week's economic calendar has several "market mover" reports.

This Week's Economic Forecast:

This week's economic forecast could cause some volatility in home mortgage rates.

There are several "market mover" reports which include the "Meeting Minutes" or commentary from the last Fed Meeting, Consumer Confidence, 2nd Quarter GDP, the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), the Institute of Supply Management (ISM), Consumer Sentiment and the most significant economic report, the Jobs Report.

Besides economic news, we have the season's first potential hurricane headed towards the Gulf of Mexico, "Ernesto". Ernesto has the potential to disrupt our oil supply which would lead to higher oil prices, and more inflationary pressures. This would not be good for Bond prices or home loan rates.