At the time I am writing this, mortgage interest rates are less than 1/8th higher than they were last Friday.

This week was a quite week in terms of economic reports and news out of Washington and Europe. With not much to move markets they stay relatively calm all week. The December trade deficit report came out today and was better than expected by 10 billion dollars, but it did not have much of an effect on the markets.

Looking ahead this month the focus will be on the sequester spending cuts set to kick in March 1st. They are $85B in mandatory spending cuts set up by President Obama in 2011. The point of the spending cuts is to offset the increase in the debt ceiling. As usual our two parties can't agree on how to handle this and as we get closer to the deadline look for increased market volatility.