Friday's bond market has opened in negative territory after this morning's economic data gave us stronger than expected results. The stock markets are also contributing with the Dow up 90 points and the Nasdaq up 28 points. The bond market is currently down 14/32, which will likely push this morning's mortgage rates higher by approximately .125 of a discount point.

The Commerce Department reported early this morning that new orders for durable goods fell 0.8% last month. While the decline is good news for bonds, the problem is that analysts were expecting a 1.5% drop. But offsetting the headline reading was a downward revision to February's orders, meaning that new orders were not as strong as previously announced last month.

The second report of the day was March's New Home Sales data. It showed little change from February's revised sales figures, however, today's released revealed an upward revision to those figures. In other words, the market got what it was expecting little change in sales of newly constructed homes between February and March. But, the cumulative total of sales was higher than thought.

Overall, this morning's data is a little confusing, but it appears that activity was higher than previously thought in February and changed little from those higher levels last month. Are these sectors starting to stabilize? It is too soon to tell, but it does make next month's reports that track April activity that much more important.

Next week is very active in terms of economic releases scheduled to be posted. None of them are due for Monday, but there is important data scheduled for every other day of the week, including another FOMC meeting. Look for more details on next week's events in Sunday's weekly preview.