Wed, Mar 2 2022, 4:40 PM
Biggest Selling Spree in a Long Time, Here's Why
Absolutely massive selling in MBS today with 3.0 coupons lo...
Wed, Mar 2 2022, 11:41 AM
The flight to safety trade has been dominating markets in the past week with bond yields hitting their lowest levels since January 13th yesterday and ...
Tue, Mar 1 2022, 4:48 PM
First thing's first. We need to get some caveats out of the way. The following should always be assumed when reading mortgage rate coverage, but I...
Tue, Mar 1 2022, 4:32 PM
Flight to Safety Dominates While Escalation Threats Remain
The line of traders waiting to buy Treasuries is ...
Tue, Mar 1 2022, 10:54 AM
The line of traders waiting to buy Treasuries is as long as the line of trucks waiting to invade Kyiv. As long as the world is convinced that things ...
Mon, Feb 28 2022, 4:38 PM
Mortgage rates are based on bonds and bonds are often the target of safe haven buying in times of geopolitical distress. The situation in Ukraine c...
Mon, Feb 28 2022, 4:06 PM
Massive Month-End Buying Collides With Safe-Haven Demand
There was already a ton of safe haven demand in the...
Mon, Feb 28 2022, 1:53 PM
If it hasn't already happened, we'll likely all be tired of hearing the phrase 'geopolitical risks' by the end of the week. As far as non-experts can...
Fri, Feb 25 2022, 4:43 PM
Bonds End Roughly Unchanged As Market Prices Out Some Risk
Bonds started weaker and gradually worked their w...
Fri, Feb 25 2022, 11:44 AM
Russia's military operations in and around Ukraine over the past 3 weeks have created significant volatility for the bond market. The fact that the ma...
Thu, Feb 24 2022, 4:33 PM
Financial markets were intently focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine today. Such things tend to push interest rates lower and today was no excep...
Thu, Feb 24 2022, 4:22 PM
What Did Bonds Give Up So Much Of Their Gains?
Russia fully invaded Ukraine overnight and bonds surged in re...
Thu, Feb 24 2022, 12:48 PM
Russia fully invaded Ukraine overnight and bonds surged in response. Stocks fell. Oil prices surged. Then at 5:30am, oil prices and bonds reversed ...
Wed, Feb 23 2022, 4:25 PM
It was another bad day for the mortgage market. This has been the norm so far in 2022 as financial markets continue repositioning for less and less s...
Wed, Feb 23 2022, 3:40 PM
No Love For Bonds Despite Decent Auction and Stock Sell-Off
Bonds started the day in moderately weaker terri...
Wed, Feb 23 2022, 12:28 PM
As we look back on the past few trading days (and reconcile them with up-to-the-minute action) it increasingly looks like stocks and bonds priced in a...
Tue, Feb 22 2022, 4:51 PM
Heading into the extended weekend, there was a small possibility that today's mortgage rates would turn out to be slightly lower. Reasons for this ...
Tue, Feb 22 2022, 4:43 PM
Treasuries Still Pricing In Some Uncertainty; MBS Underperform.
Bonds had a volatile trading day as markets ...
Tue, Feb 22 2022, 9:51 AM
Overnight trading was volatile at first, with yields falling all the way to 1.846 for 10yr Treasuries. In the first hour of domestic trading, they've...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 4:55 PM
With things still up in the air in terms of geopolitical risk, markets are seeking safer havens. Most recently, this is affecting stocks a bit more t...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 4:15 PM
Would Rates Be Going Higher Without Ukraine Situation?
Rates were rising abruptly as of last Thursday when t...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 12:43 PM
3-day weekends are generally popular among the "weekday 9-5" crowd, but they can also bring elevated uncertainty to financial markets when the news cy...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 4:38 PM
Bonds Continue Watching Geopolitical Sideshow
Bonds are in a bit of a lull in the bigger picture. Yields ha...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 4:35 PM
It's Thursday and thus time once again for the weekly installment of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. For the 2nd time this year, Fred...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 4:11 PM
No Whammies in Fed Minutes, Geopolitics, or Bond Volatility
Today ended up being one of the least volatile t...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 3:24 PM
There have been a few hours of a few days over the past week where mortgage rates have been just a bit higher than they are this afternoon. But for...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 12:39 PM
Bonds finally had a relatively flat trading session overnight with no Russia/Ukraine headlines sparking any obvious reactions. Stronger Retail Sales ...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 5:08 PM
Ukraine Headlines Are Noise in The Bigger (Badder) Picture
The overnight trading session was marked by sever...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 10:01 AM
The downside of a bond rally based on geopolitical risk is that gains can evaporate quickly in the event of de-escalation. That's the theme of today'...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 4:07 PM
Last Friday was an interesting day for mortgage rates and the broader bond market. Rates began the day roughly in line with Thursday's latest levels,...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 3:53 PM
Comic Misdirection Between Headlines and Markets
Geopolitical issues remain at the forefront as far as finan...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 11:34 AM
Last Friday's big news involved a series of headlines suggesting imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. This sent stocks and especially bond yields pl...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 7:31 PM
There were 3 distinct parts to this week. The first part consisted of the entirety of the first 3 days. Rates didn't move much as the market contin...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 4:23 PM
Massive Reversal After Russia/Ukraine Headlines
Quite the round trip today as bond yields hit the weakest le...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 11:49 AM
Consumer Sentiment was the only report on the calendar today. Markets typically don't pay too much attention to it and today is no exception. Market...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 4:10 PM
Bonds Obliterated. Why and What Next?
Today was an astonishingly bad day for the bond market relative to wh...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:22 PM
There are many different ways to track mortgage rates and several different sources quoted in the news. For decades, the most prevalently-quoted sour...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 9:45 AM
The history of financial markets is littered with modestly higher CPI numbers that failed to cause any volatility. Today is shaping up to be quite th...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 4:28 PM
The day began with so much potential --at least in the sense that it could have served as the foundation for slightly lower mortgage rates this after...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 4:11 PM
Strong Auction But Bonds Retreat at The Close
This morning's market summary headline mentioned the strong st...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 11:44 AM
US and EU yields continue to correlate fairly well. This is a blessing and curse--sometimes both at the same time depending on the point of view. Fo...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 4:42 PM
Last Friday continues to be the epicenter of the most recent push to multi-year highs for mortgage rates. The average lender jumped by roughly an e...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 4:15 PM
More Long-Term Rate Highs, But No New Reasons
Bonds were in sell mode right from the start of the overnight ...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 9:51 AM
1.95% was a tremendously important technical ceiling in late 2019 before covid. It lay dormant for more than 2 years until the early 2022 sell-off put...
Mon, Feb 7 2022, 4:01 PM
Uneventfully Holding Near Long-Term Rate Highs
This morning's commentary centered on last Friday's dark hors...
Mon, Feb 7 2022, 9:53 AM
It was easy to focus on elephant in the room last week as most of the US bond market weakness came in apparent response to Friday's jobs report. But ...
Fri, Feb 4 2022, 5:01 PM
Aren't Bonds Overreacting to a Jobs Report That Wasn't Supposed to Matter?
The Fed already declared victory ...
Fri, Feb 4 2022, 1:31 PM
This wasn't supposed to happen. The bond market shouldn't have cared about today's jobs data. The Fed had already declared victory on jobs and mov...
Fri, Feb 4 2022, 12:29 PM
Rates have been trending higher in fits and starts since August 2020, but the mortgage market was insulated from much of the pain due to its disconn...
Thu, Feb 3 2022, 4:27 PM
What a difference a day makes. Unfortunately, it's an unpleasant difference in this case as mortgage rates went from the lowest levels in more than a...
