Today, 11:48 AM
I don’t know where April went, but we’re at the end of it, and 2025 is 1/3 over. The future sure quickly becomes the past. In the book “1984” George O...
Today, 11:31 AM
In terms of line items, Wednesday morning is the week's most active morning for economic reports. Several of them were potentially important, but the ...
Tue, Apr 29 2025, 4:20 PM
Trading Range Restored. Big Data on Deck
Today's trading was almost a carbon copy of yesterday's with overni...
Tue, Apr 29 2025, 3:25 PM
It's now been more than a week since mortgage rates ended the day higher than the previous day. And we haven't recovered quite as much lost ground as...
Tue, Apr 29 2025, 11:44 AM
My cat Myrtle was always interested in both the primary and secondary markets… for line-caught halibut. In residential lending, the secondary markets ...
Tue, Apr 29 2025, 10:50 AM
Once again, bonds were modestly weaker overnight and once again, that weakness is being reversed in early trading. Whereas scapegoats were nowhere to ...
Mon, Apr 28 2025, 4:12 PM
No Whammies in Treasury Borrowing Estimate
Bonds were slightly weaker overnight but quickly moved into stron...
Mon, Apr 28 2025, 3:36 PM
Mortgage rates ended last week at the lowest levels since April 7th. The average lender remained at those same levels at the start of business today,...
Mon, Apr 28 2025, 11:39 AM
When getting a sense of what's happening in the bond market, it's frequently safe to ignore the last 2 hours of trading on Friday and the first 2 on M...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 5:09 PM
Eerily Calm and Strong For 2nd Straight Day
After being heavily conditioned to expect elevated volatility wi...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 4:06 PM
The news on mortgage rates has been frustratingly mixed recently, depending on the source. This is a factor of the various time frames and methodologi...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 3:54 PM
As is the case for the monthly data on New Home Sales from the Census Bureau, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Existing Home Sales report do...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 3:19 PM
The Census Bureau released March New Home Sales data this week, and it was near the best levels seen since early 2022. Before you get too excited abo...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 3:01 PM
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 11:52 AM
What if your client called the CFPB about a servicing issue, or any issue, and no one answered? Things are changing, but for a thorough write up on th...
Fri, Apr 25 2025, 10:34 AM
Today's only scheduled economic report is Consumer Sentiment. Nonetheless, we would classify today as being "data free" because this is simply the fin...
Thu, Apr 24 2025, 4:26 PM
Solid Bond Rally For Debatable Reasons
Bonds improved moderately well overnight and added to those gains ste...
Thu, Apr 24 2025, 3:47 PM
Mortgage rates continue the slow, bumpy process of healing from the rapid rise seen 2 weeks ago. Last week was a solid victory in that sense with rate...
Thu, Apr 24 2025, 12:19 PM
What's "normal" for the bond market? That depends how far back you want to look. Starting in late February, we had about a month of mostly sideways m...
Thu, Apr 24 2025, 11:48 AM
“I hate it when I see an old person and then realize we went to high school together.” Nothing lasts forever, not top lenders or even computer compani...
Thu, Apr 24 2025, 10:52 AM
So you want to buy a house but already own. These are your options. Many current homeowners would like to sell their home and trade up or down but ar...
Wed, Apr 23 2025, 4:42 PM
Bonds Lose Almost All The Gains After Inflation Warnings in The Data
Bonds started out sharply stronger toda...
Wed, Apr 23 2025, 4:12 PM
Mortgage rates are an extension of the financial market, so it's no surprise that they've been more volatile than normal over the past few weeks as ma...
Wed, Apr 23 2025, 11:50 AM
“I won a million dollars and donated a quarter of it to charity! I now have $999999.75 left.” Money can be funny… or not. In the past, a “flight to qu...
Wed, Apr 23 2025, 10:17 AM
Two factors had been contributing more than others to drive bond yields higher as of yesterday. The broader, ongoing factor is/was the tariff/trade s...
Tue, Apr 22 2025, 4:37 PM
Broadly Sideways Despite Intraday Volatility
Shorter term bonds lost ground today while longer term bonds an...
Tue, Apr 22 2025, 3:31 PM
In not so many words, last week's thesis was that "no news was good news" for mortgage rates. Specifically, an absence of major, unexpected developme...
Tue, Apr 22 2025, 11:39 AM
“My boss pulled up in his brand-new BMW today and I couldn’t help but admire it. “Nice car,” I said as he got out. “Well,” he said, noticing my admiri...
Tue, Apr 22 2025, 11:07 AM
If there was an overriding theme last week, it was that the absence of new tariff drama helped the bond market recover some of the previous week's wea...
Mon, Apr 21 2025, 5:28 PM
Unfortunate Market Movement For Unfortunate Reasons
Global financial markets partook in a slow motion train ...
Mon, Apr 21 2025, 4:29 PM
Last week was a hopeful one for interest rates. The average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate fell more than 0.20% from the previous week's highs as ...
Mon, Apr 21 2025, 11:44 AM
In the 1980s I fell off my bike and hurt my knee. I'm telling you this now because we didn't have social media then. It doesn’t take social media to k...
Mon, Apr 21 2025, 10:38 AM
Heading into last week, we expected to be waiting until after the holiday weekend to get a better sense of the prevailing tone in financial markets. I...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 4:55 PM
Don't Sweat The Modest Weakness
Bonds began the day roughly unchanged and very flat for most of the morning....
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 4:02 PM
The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo publish the Housing Market Index (HMI) each month, otherwise known simply as "builder ...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 3:32 PM
One would think that the pace of new residential construction largely mirrors the pace of filings for building permits. And while that is generally tr...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 2:35 PM
Mortgage rates managed to make a nice amount of progress this week after hitting the highest levels in roughly 2 months last Friday. The first 2 days ...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 2:18 PM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) mortgage application survey was at the highest combined level since October in last week's data--a move large...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 11:55 AM
A week from today is “Take Your Child to Work Day.” Something tells me that it won’t be observed in U.S. Government offices. While we’re on family iss...
Thu, Apr 17 2025, 10:45 AM
The market and market participants could use a break after everything endured over the past 2 weeks. This holiday-shortened week turned out to provid...
Wed, Apr 16 2025, 3:48 PM
Bonds Reprise Familiar Role as a Safe Haven Amid Renewed Rout in Stocks
You've seen it plenty of times so fa...
Wed, Apr 16 2025, 3:29 PM
As markets digested implications of several fiscal policy changes over the past 2 months, a predictable trading pattern emerged. Stocks and interest r...
Wed, Apr 16 2025, 11:45 AM
“Every morning, I get hit by the same bicycle… It's a vicious cycle.” Double meanings aside, seasons and the earth’s rotation are cyclical, and Anchor...
Wed, Apr 16 2025, 11:35 AM
What a difference a week makes. The present example has been entirely different than the previous example in terms of volatility and directional movem...
Tue, Apr 15 2025, 4:39 PM
Absence Makes the Bonds Grow Stronger
Bonds improved at a moderate pace for the 2nd day in a row, thus marki...
Tue, Apr 15 2025, 3:50 PM
Financial markets experienced relatively extreme volatility on several occasions following the April 2nd tariff announcements. The bonds that underlie...
Tue, Apr 15 2025, 11:33 AM
Here in San Diego at the CU:REALM event, Cotality’s Chief Economist Dr. Selma Hepp noted that consumer and business sentiment has already dropped and ...
Tue, Apr 15 2025, 11:24 AM
In the context of the past two weeks, the past two days have been an anomaly. Not only have bond yields been moving lower, but they've done so in rela...
Mon, Apr 14 2025, 4:18 PM
Bonds Build on Overnight Gains After Another Tariff Change
It was a low drama session for bonds with overnig...
Mon, Apr 14 2025, 3:18 PM
Last Friday was notable in that it was the first day since February 19th where the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate ended the day over 7%. La...
