Thursday's bond market has opened in negative territory despite a lack of bad news in today's economic data. The stock markets are showing losses with the Dow down 38 points and the Nasdaq down 28 points. The bond market is currently down 13/32, which will like push this morning's mortgage rates higher by approximately .250 of a discount point.

Today's economic news wasn't considered to be of much importance to the markets. The final revision to the 4th Quarter GDP came in at 0.6% as it was expected to. In a bit of good news, a key inflation reading in the data was revised lower than previously estimated. However, as with the headline GDP number, this data is quite aged now since it covers October thru December of last year. Analysts are more concerned about the January to March figures that will be released next month.

The Labor Department gave us last week's unemployment claims figures this morning also. They reported that 366,000 new claim s for benefits were filed last week. This was down from the previous week and lower than forecasts had called for. But, since the data tracks only a week's worth of claims, it is not considered to be of high importance to the markets.

There are two relevant reports scheduled for release tomorrow. The first is February's Personal Income & Outlays report. This data helps us measure consumers' ability to spend and current spending habits, which is important to the mortgage market because of the influence that consumer spending related information has on the financial markets. If a consumer's income is rising, they are more likely to make additional purchases. This raises inflation concerns and has a negative affect on the bond market and mortgage rates. Current forecasts are calling for a 0.3% rise in income and a 0.1% rise in spending.

The second report comes from the University of Michigan at 9:45 AM ET. Their revision to the March consumer sentiment i ndex will give us an indication of consumer confidence, which hints at consumers' willingness to spend. It is expected to show a small decline from the previous reading of 70.5. A weaker than expected reading would be good news for bonds because lower levels of consumer spending eases inflation concerns in the market.