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Tuesday's bond market has opened in positive territory, recovering some of yesterday's sell-off. The stock markets are showing losses with the Dow down 76 points and the Nasdaq down 5 points. The bond market is currently up 16/32, which should improve this morning's mortgage rates by approximately .250 of a discount point.

Today's only relevant economic news was favorable to bonds and mortgage rates. The Conference Board released their Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for March late this morning, showing a reading of 64.5. This was well below forecasts of 73.4 and touched a five year low, indicating that consumer confidence is falling quicker than expected. That is good news for bonds and mortgage rates because waning confidence usually translates into less consumer spending.

Tomorrow's important data comes from the Commerce Department, who will post February's Durable Goods Orders. This report gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector str ength by tracking new orders for big-ticket items, or products that are expected to last three or more years. This data is known to be volatile from month to month but is still considered to be of high importance. Analysts are expecting it to show an increase in orders of approximately 0.8%. A larger increase would be considered a negative for bonds and could lead to higher mortgage rates tomorrow morning.

Also tomorrow is the release of February's New Home Sales report. It will give us another indication of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand. It is actually the week's least important news and likely will not have an impact on mortgage rates unless it greatly varies from forecasts. The report is expected to show a decline in sales of newly constructed homes.