Mortgage Bond prices hit that tough overhead ceiling of resistance again this morning as they attempted to move higher, but since have been turned back, and remain lower so far today.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke on Capitol Hill last night and said that the low interest rate environment will likely be needed for a while.  However, he went on to say that as the economy heals, the Fed will hike rates quickly to ward off inflation.  This is exactly what we have been concerned about, and writing of and explaining those concerns to you for some time.  We certainly agree with Mr. Bernanke’s comments – and while inflation is not an immediate issue, it will become a problem down the road.  And the ending will not be pretty for rates.  There is no doubt that rates are going higher, and clients are simply foolish to not take advantage of the current environment, as it is highly unlikely that rates will ever be lower or even potentially equal to where prices have been over the past week.

The New York Federal Reserve purchased $20B in Mortgage backed securities in the latest week, bringing the year-to-date total to $924B out of the $1.25T allotted for the program.  Here’s a key point…let’s do some math.  The Fed will purchase $301B more through the end of March 2010, which is 25 weeks from now.  Simple math tells us that 301 divided by 25 equals about $12B per week in purchases, which the Fed may elect to do so as $24B every other week.  This is obviously a significantly lower amount of buying of MBS, which in turn, will lead to softer Bond prices and higher mortgage rates.  There’s no disputing the math.

Today – October 9th – is a very interesting anniversary day in Stock market history.  It marks the all time highs in the Dow and S&P, reached in 2007.  The Dow closed at 14,164 while the S&P 500 finished October 9, 2007 at 1,565.15.  It also marks the seven-year anniversary of the bottom of the bear market that lasted between 2000 and 2002.