by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2022 09:05:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Unchanged to Slightly Lower

Mortgage rates are coming off of one of their best weeks in nearly 2 years, which isn't quite as glamorous as it sounds, but still a good accomplishment (read more about it in last week's recap HERE). Rates managed to maintain those levels as the new week began. Some lenders were microscopically better, but not enough to have a noticeable impact on most quotes. [30 year fixed 5.37%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Retail sales for April is scheduled to be released.  The consensus is for 0.8% increase in retail sales.

• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for April. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to increase to 78.5%.

• At 10:00 AM, The May NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 75 down from 77 last month.  Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

• At 2:00 PM, Discussion, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell, Conversation with Nick Timiraos, At the Wall Street Journal Future of Everything Festival, New York, New York

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated	66.4%	---	≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)	220.6	---	≥2321
New Cases per Day3🚩	90,337	68,610	≤5,0002
Hospitalized3🚩	14,524	13,683	≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3	263	308	≤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 have more than tripled from the recent low, and hospitalizations are increasing week-over-week.

Average daily deaths bottomed in July 2021 at 214 per day.