Wed, Sep 14 2022, 5:25 PM
The mortgage market is no stranger to excitement in 2022. Unfortunately, it hasn't been the good kind of excitement. That's especially true of the p...
Wed, Sep 14 2022, 4:53 PM
Slow and Sideways as Markets Wait For Bigger News
Bonds began the day in moderately weaker territory but ral...
Wed, Sep 14 2022, 11:47 AM
While it continues to be the case that upcoming economic data and next week's Fed announcement are more than capable of taking bonds into new high yie...
Wed, Sep 14 2022, 10:31 AM
With inflation likely causing the Fed to keep hiking rates aggressively (more on that in the Capital Markets section at the bottom), many people in ou...
Wed, Sep 14 2022, 10:26 AM
Only a slight uptick in purchase mortgage applications kept all last week’s volume indicators from falling for the fifth straight time. The Mortgage B...
Tue, Sep 13 2022, 3:31 PM
Unfortunate, But Logical Reaction to Much Hotter Core Inflation
Markets had been waiting on today's CPI repo...
Tue, Sep 13 2022, 3:29 PM
Mortgage rates were already in the vicinity of the highest levels in 14 years. With large day-to-day swings being extremely common these days, we wer...
Tue, Sep 13 2022, 1:08 PM
Mortgage credit access tightened again in August, a trend that has been nearly continuous since the onset of the pandemic more than two years ago. The...
Tue, Sep 13 2022, 9:57 AM
We knew there was a lot riding on today's CPI data and that it was highly likely to inspire a big move higher or lower for bonds if it came in much hi...
Tue, Sep 13 2022, 9:54 AM
With the Fed set to end its MBS purchases tomorrow, removing free money from the MBS market, where do you think home affordability will go from here? ...
Mon, Sep 12 2022, 4:27 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher today, but only after moving slightly lower earlier this morning. "Higher" and "lower" are more informative if...
Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:53 PM
Potentially Decent Day Turns Sour After 10yr Treasury Auction
The first day of the new week began innocently...
Mon, Sep 12 2022, 10:45 AM
Does evolution lead to success? Major League Baseball is banking that instituting a pitch clock and banning defensive shifts starting next year will l...
Mon, Sep 12 2022, 10:02 AM
There are times when a particular event garners too much attention as the most important consideration for bond market momentum. If any event were to...
Fri, Sep 9 2022, 8:12 PM
It's certainly already been an interesting year for financial markets--especially for housing and interest rates. But most of what's happened over the...
Fri, Sep 9 2022, 8:12 PM
Fairly Inconsequential Friday Ahead of a Very Consequential Week Ahead
Despite feeling like a bumpy ride at times, the bond market actually didn...
Fri, Sep 9 2022, 12:21 PM
Bonds had a respectable overnight session with steady gains seen mostly during European hours. Then in the early part of the domestic session, it was...
Fri, Sep 9 2022, 9:48 AM
Whether it is independent mortgage banks or companies with the largest market caps in the world, new products are being developed and rolled out to he...
Thu, Sep 8 2022, 5:15 PM
It was an interesting day for mortgage rates due to the timing of movement in the underlying bond market. Bond prices/yields are the primary ingredie...
Thu, Sep 8 2022, 4:43 PM
Bonds Close Weaker After Early Volatility and Late-Day Illiquidity
As has been the case for so many afternoo...
Thu, Sep 8 2022, 11:36 AM
Fairly simple morning so far: the European Central Bank (ECB) hiked its policy rate by the expected 75bps. There wasn't much of a reaction to that. ...
Thu, Sep 8 2022, 9:57 AM
California is currently going through a heat wave (Sacramento set a temperature record on Tuesday at 116°), taxing the state's power grid as energy de...
Wed, Sep 7 2022, 5:32 PM
Mortgage rates spiked quickly to open the holiday-shortened week with the average 30yr fixed rate coming very close to the 14-year high seen on June 1...
Wed, Sep 7 2022, 4:49 PM
Nice Push Back Against Tuesday's Weakness. ECB On Deck
Tuesday was brutal and the only real explanation for...
Wed, Sep 7 2022, 11:56 AM
Corporate bond issuance is one of those slightly esoteric concepts to the average rate watcher and usually a completely foreign concept to the average...
Wed, Sep 7 2022, 9:50 AM
The mortgage industry has come a long way from March of 2020, when the Federal Reserve pledged to buy “unlimited” amounts of Treasuries and MBS to sta...
Wed, Sep 7 2022, 9:45 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says the pace of mortgage applications slowed for a fourth consecutive time during the week ended September 2...
Tue, Sep 6 2022, 4:57 PM
As we discussed last week, there is unprecedented volatility in mortgage rates at the moment. It's not that we're seeing record setting swings from d...
Tue, Sep 6 2022, 4:27 PM
Steady Afternoon Leaves Steep AM Losses Intact
Today's recap could just as easily be this morning's commenta...
Tue, Sep 6 2022, 10:53 AM
Summertime seasonality is one of the worst kept secrets among bond forecasters. Simply put, since 2010, this is only the 3rd year where yields haven'...
Tue, Sep 6 2022, 10:26 AM
Now that we have passed the unofficial end of summer, am I allowed or not allowed to wear white on Zoom calls before 2023’s Memorial Day? Maybe darker...
Fri, Sep 2 2022, 5:40 PM
Why Stronger Jobs Data Gave Way to a Rate Rally
Anything over 300k is big number for nonfarm payrolls. Toda...
Fri, Sep 2 2022, 5:16 PM
It's a tremendously important and volatile time for the market and especially for interest rates. The biggest inflation surge in decades pushed rates...
Fri, Sep 2 2022, 11:05 AM
For weeks on end, it's been "sell first and ask questions later" for the bond market. Any econ data that's been at least halfway decent has been at r...
Fri, Sep 2 2022, 10:29 AM
We have witnessed a change in our work environment. From the Central Coast of California, Jeff O. sent, “Yesterday I had convened a zoom meeting of ma...
Thu, Sep 1 2022, 4:40 PM
Where We Are, Where We Might Be Going, And How We Might Get There
The first day of September found a way to ...
Thu, Sep 1 2022, 3:12 PM
As recently as late July, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility to see certain lenders quoting conventional 30yr fixed mortgage rates in the high...
Thu, Sep 1 2022, 10:36 AM
Imagine hosting a cocktail party with guests arriving and departing at random times. A particularly rowdy and unpleasant guest--let's call them "Augu...
Thu, Sep 1 2022, 10:07 AM
Tony H. writes, “I just switched my 30-year home mortgage to ‘student loan.’ Follow me for more financial advice.” I have been fielding questions abou...
Wed, Aug 31 2022, 4:44 PM
The last day of August was also the worst day for rates in August. In fact, it was the worse than any of July as well and not too terribly far from t...
Wed, Aug 31 2022, 4:28 PM
So Long August. Don't Let The Door Hit Ya!
July! We miss you!
August, please leave!
Hopefully Septemb...
Wed, Aug 31 2022, 12:15 PM
If you've been surprised by the extent to which US bonds have been hit by European inflation reports in the past month, you're not alone. Granted, th...
Wed, Aug 31 2022, 10:49 AM
My cat Myrtle has a certain amount of “girth,” as they say. But I tell her that she carries it well as the calories from line-caught halibut have far ...
Wed, Aug 31 2022, 10:11 AM
The volume of mortgage applications fell again last week, dragged lower by refinancing which had its largest week-over-week decline since mid-May. The...
Tue, Aug 30 2022, 5:08 PM
Mortgage rates are driven by the bond market, and bond traders have a lot on their minds these days. After trading rates up to the highest levels in ...
Tue, Aug 30 2022, 4:30 PM
Sideways Afternoon After Volatile Morning
"Hypervigilant volatility." Get used to seeing that new phrase as...
Tue, Aug 30 2022, 2:30 PM
Today brings the release of June's home price indices from both the FHFA (the regulator that oversees Fannie and Freddie, the entities that guarantee ...
Tue, Aug 30 2022, 10:57 AM
Hypervigilant volatility in response to data and policy comments is the order of the day/week/month as traders assume central bankers are more impress...
Tue, Aug 30 2022, 9:54 AM
Nature “always bats last.” Terrible flooding in Pakistan, flooding in Mississippi impacting its drinking water supplies. Severe temperatures in China,...
Mon, Aug 29 2022, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates managed to breathe a decent sigh of relief last Friday as the bond market remained fairly calm despite stock market weakness following ...
