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Many have asked what market trends influence mortgage rates?  It's a fairly complicated question and contrary to the general public perception, it has little to nothing to do with the Fed's funds rate, which is what we hear on most media outlets.  Perhaps the simplest or easiest way to track mortgage rates is to keep a look out at treasury bonds on bloomberg.com.  If you see bonds trending higher, and conversely yields heading lower, then generally we'll see improvements in mortgage rates, meaning they'll go lower. If bonds go lower (and yields higher), then mortgage rates will increase. 

Obviously, there are some exceptions to this because there are other factors that will influence rates.  For instance, bonds may be performing very well because the stock market is down, but if it's financial stocks that are dragging down the market because mortgage backed securities are performing poorly (such as with the market today) then you will still see increases in mortgage rates.