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Like a piece of driftwood floating aimlessly on the open sea, mortgage rates continue to waft along, waiting for stronger economic currents to kick things into higher gear.

But the combination of the summer doldrums and continued uncertainty about where the nation is headed on key economic issues like health care reform and cap-and-trade legislation, has the mortgage industry treading water – falling one week and rising the next, with no apparent long-term direction.

This week, the BankingMyWay weekly mortgage tracker has 15-year and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rising slightly, from 4.93% and 5.41%, to 4.96% and 5.46%, respectively.

One- and three-year adjustable rate mortgages rose, as well. One-year ARMs jumped sharply from 4.54% to 4.84%, while three-year ARMs spiked from 4.85% to 4.92%.

The moderate rise in rates across the board may be fueled by an uptick in the stock market, where corporate earnings news from heavyweights like Intel (Stock Quote: INTC), Google (Stock Quote: GOOG), and Goldman Sachs (Stock Quote: GS) produced quarterly numbers that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.

Another slice of more encouraging news was last month’s new housing number. New single-family housing starts were expected to clock in at 530,000 for June. But the real numbers came in significantly higher, at 582,000 new home starts. We may have a trend here, and a decent one: May’s housing start numbers were also better than expected, at 562,000.

Mortgage professionals looking for signs of a bottom can now point to two straight months of increasingly solid new housing starts. And stock investors can point to more jobs, as housing construction firms should need to add employees to keep up with rebounding demand for new homes.

As far as evidence of a serious rebound in the mortgage industry, last week’s news wasn’t exactly the mother lode. That said, it wasn’t chopped liver, either. With stronger housing numbers and an upward trend in the stock market, mortgage rates did respond with a slight uptick, pretty much down the line.

But the question remains, much as it has during 2009 so far, is there a real economic recovery on the horizon, or is it an illusion?

If it’s the former, we’ll see more aggressive buying, as investors look to snap up mortgage rates at around 5.25% (for 30-year mortgages) before the economy picks up and rates rise again. If it’s the latter, all we’ll wind up with in the near term is more drifting – and more anxious lenders who are tired of being stranded out at sea.

— For more ways to save, spend, invest and borrow, visit MainStreet.com.