Fri, Sep 22 2023, 5:48 PM
Mortgage rates actually recovered a bit on Friday as the underlying bond market experienced a modest correction after spiking to the weakest levels in...
Fri, Sep 22 2023, 3:59 PM
Waiting For October
It seems like September only just arrived, but our sights are already set on October as ...
Fri, Sep 22 2023, 12:17 PM
In a rather classic pattern, a hawkish read on the Fed gave way to international selling on Thursday. From there, a token correction was slightly mor...
Fri, Sep 22 2023, 9:59 AM
Sometimes I send this Commentary out from some pretty nice places, sometimes not. Today comes from the tarmac at the Newark Airport, in Row 22, sittin...
Thu, Sep 21 2023, 4:09 PM
Rates moved only moderately higher on Wednesday after the Fed rocked the bond market with its updated rate forecasts. To reiterate yesterday's analys...
Thu, Sep 21 2023, 4:07 PM
New Yield Highs After Post-Fed Follow-Through and Econ Data
Any time the market goes to sleep on a Fed day i...
Thu, Sep 21 2023, 12:27 PM
Wednesday was a confirmation of a hawkish Fed that won't care about the economy until it sees actual damage, and even then, only if that damage coinci...
Thu, Sep 21 2023, 10:10 AM
Who can think of September 21st without thinking about Earth, Wind, and Fire? Yesterday I was on a United Airlines flight out of San Francisco to Sava...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 4:50 PM
The Fed did not hike its policy rate today, but it did release updated forecasts that showed the average Fed member expects rates to be half a percent...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 4:43 PM
Higher For Longer
Today's Fed announcement was largely as expected: no rate hike, "data dependent," and "hig...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 2:01 PM
Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate solid pace. Job gains have been robust slowed in recent month...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 11:53 AM
Learning how to make a big deal out of every Fed day is a requirement for passing the market commentary test. But the often-overlooked extra credit c...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 11:16 AM
Today is 092023 and I head to Savannah, GA for the SECUREN (credit union) conference. Did you know that the last day of 2023 is 123123? In other “fun ...
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 11:09 AM
Mortgage application activity bounced back from the holiday-shortened prior week but is still running significantly below historic levels. The Mortg...
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 4:51 PM
The FOMC (Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee) is what most people are referring to when they say "the Fed." This is the group that meets 8 times ...
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 4:30 PM
Bonds Get Pre-Fed Jitters After a Mostly Flat Day
Bonds began the day in moderately weaker territory, mostly...
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 11:15 AM
Results of the August Residential Construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were decidedly m...
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 10:42 AM
Arrr, me hearties! Last week, there be a mighty surge towards them long-term highs in the Treasury yields. But alas! With no bounty of econ data to st...
Mon, Sep 18 2023, 4:11 PM
Mortgage rates began the day in slightly higher territory, but recovered after lenders offered mid-day price improvements. These sorts of mid-day cha...
Mon, Sep 18 2023, 4:08 PM
Uneventful Monday Fits Fed Week Narrative
After last week's economic data ebbed and bonds sold-off with Euro...
Mon, Sep 18 2023, 12:49 PM
With limited data of any particular relevance ahead of this week's Fed announcement, the path of least resistance in the bond market would be for a br...
Mon, Sep 18 2023, 11:56 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said on Monday that its index that measures home builder confidence in the new home market has fallen...
Mon, Sep 18 2023, 10:06 AM
If you want something sobering, almost mesmerizing, here’s a short drone video of the flood damage in Libya (at the 15 second mark you can see how it ...
Fri, Sep 15 2023, 5:23 PM
In and of itself, today wasn't too bad for mortgage rates. Things got a bit worse, but the change from yesterday was average or slightly lower. Ther...
Fri, Sep 15 2023, 5:18 PM
Ceiling Defense!
There are two ways to look at today's weakness in the bond market. On one hand, yields did ...
Fri, Sep 15 2023, 9:56 AM
Yesterday's natural impulse for the domestic bond market would simply have been to move toward higher rates due to a raft of upbeat economic data in t...
Fri, Sep 15 2023, 8:34 AM
“Happy” 15-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers going belly up. “I was struggling to understand how lightning works and then it struck me.” One of the ...
Thu, Sep 14 2023, 4:27 PM
Whatever is bad for the economy is typically good for interest rates. That's the grim irony for the mortgage market and it's the reason you might fin...
Thu, Sep 14 2023, 4:26 PM
Europe Helps US Bonds Avoid a Bigger Data-Driven Sell-Off
In a vacuum of "data dependency," today should hav...
Thu, Sep 14 2023, 12:13 PM
If you had to guess at what this morning's economic data would have done to the bond market ahead of time, current trading levels would almost certain...
Thu, Sep 14 2023, 11:15 AM
This morning I head from Chicago to Orlando along with 74 million others (yearly). More fun with numbers: Although the MBA thinks we’ll fund about $1....
Wed, Sep 13 2023, 4:44 PM
Today's big to-do was the release of August's Consumer Price Index (CPI), a critical inflation report with the power to significantly influence rate m...
Wed, Sep 13 2023, 4:32 PM
What's Up With The Paradoxical Post-CPI Rally?
The bond market stared down today's month-over-month core CPI...
Wed, Sep 13 2023, 12:31 PM
Core month-over-month CPI came in at 0.3% versus a 0.2% forecast. This would be bad for bonds at first glance, and indeed it was--at least initially....
Wed, Sep 13 2023, 10:15 AM
McDonald’s taking 9 years to eliminate its self-serve soda pop machines. (Couldn’t they take 5 hours and just move the machines behind the counter?) I...
Wed, Sep 13 2023, 9:20 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said the volume of mortgage applications dipped slightly during the week ended September 8. MBA said its Market...
Tue, Sep 12 2023, 4:59 PM
Calm Waters Again, But Tomorrow Could Rock The Boat
Much like yesterday (which saw the narrowest 10yr yield ...
Tue, Sep 12 2023, 3:20 PM
Mortgage rates started the week slightly higher for the average lender, but still below last week's highs. Most of what was lost yesterday was gained...
Tue, Sep 12 2023, 10:39 AM
Bonds may be up a bit and down a bit between now and yesterday's close, but none of it is super consequential in the bigger picture. Of course there ...
Tue, Sep 12 2023, 9:36 AM
Yesterday I listened to the CFPB’s Rohit Chopra discuss home loans. Today I head from Nashville to Chicago, both known all over the world. Here, the U...
Mon, Sep 11 2023, 3:49 PM
Flattest Trading Day in 2 Years
Bonds began the overnight session in slightly weaker territory and held almo...
Mon, Sep 11 2023, 12:33 PM
At times over the past 2 years, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been the most important economic report on any given month and has had a bigger imp...
Mon, Sep 11 2023, 11:07 AM
One of the topics here in Tennessee is how lenders can help real estate agents or clients. Wanna maybe help your client or favorite real estate agent ...
Fri, Sep 8 2023, 6:55 PM
While it's impossible to predict the future when it comes to financial markets, it's usually possible to identify the events that have higher potentia...
Fri, Sep 8 2023, 4:08 PM
Uneventful Friday. Thoughts Turning to CPI
Apart from the fact that 10yr Treasury yields are about 25bps hig...
Fri, Sep 8 2023, 11:16 AM
There weren't any huge, obvious market movers in the overnight session. The average analyst is chalking up bond gains to good old "global growth conc...
Fri, Sep 8 2023, 10:09 AM
Inflation and price increases can be widespread and impact many, like gasoline or flour, or can be very specific and impact only a small portion of th...
Thu, Sep 7 2023, 4:00 PM
Mortgage rates haven't had a great week so far. Monday's bank holiday meant that mortgage lenders had to account for an extra day of movement in the ...
Thu, Sep 7 2023, 3:36 PM
Stronger Bonds Despite Stronger Data
In this very "data dependent" environment, it was no surprise to see bo...
Thu, Sep 7 2023, 10:18 AM
“My mother used to say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Wonderful woman, lousy surgeon.” There is some great food in various part...
