Fri, Nov 22 2019, 10:39 AM
I'm sorry if the following is starting to sound like a broken record, but it's all we really have at the moment. The bond market encounters these sor...
Thu, Nov 21 2019, 4:40 PM
Today brought one of the week's only potentially important economic reports in the form of the Philly Fed Index, but it fell on deaf ears. Notably, t...
Thu, Nov 21 2019, 4:18 PM
Mortgage rates spent a 2nd day with the average lender holding relatively steady . This follows a decent winning streak over the previous week and a h...
Thu, Nov 21 2019, 10:22 AM
Much of 2019 has been "interesting" from an analytical standpoint. Things were happening. Markets were reacting. Movement was big and directional. ...
Wed, Nov 20 2019, 5:10 PM
There were 2 sorts of trade headlines in play today, but before we get to those, I wrote something today that bears repeating.
"The trade deal, in...
Wed, Nov 20 2019, 4:45 PM
Mortgage rates are in the midst of a winning streak of moderate size and duration. Specifically, rates have improved by at least an eighth of a percen...
Wed, Nov 20 2019, 9:35 AM
Bonds are on a roll at the moment with 5 of the last 6 trading days resulting in lower yields. Rather than stand as some evidence of new strength in ...
Tue, Nov 19 2019, 5:13 PM
There's something special (and especially frustrating) about certain summertime Mondays. This is true not only because you might have been doing some...
Tue, Nov 19 2019, 3:29 PM
Mortgage rates had a great week last week and haven't done anything to jeopardize that so far this week. Today was the first time during these 2 weeks...
Tue, Nov 19 2019, 9:40 AM
Daily and overnight trading volumes have been declining, and intraday trading ranges have been getting more narrow. The starting point for that trend...
Mon, Nov 18 2019, 4:51 PM
As 2019 winds down, investors have never been so broadly certain about the overall market thesis. Unfortunately, that thesis calls for unavoidable un...
Mon, Nov 18 2019, 4:27 PM
Mortgage rates added to last week's improvement with another modest drop today. That brings the average lender to the best levels in exactly 2 weeks--...
Mon, Nov 18 2019, 10:38 AM
Last week provided a much-needed recovery that counteracted some of the fast-paced selling seen in the first week of November. Despite the friendly d...
Fri, Nov 15 2019, 7:06 PM
Yields broke up and out of their prevailing range last week and took the present week to focus on reentry. While those efforts went a long way toward...
Fri, Nov 15 2019, 6:06 PM
Mortgage rates finished the week in much better territory compared to last Friday. Today only added modestly to that move, but the simple act of movin...
Fri, Nov 15 2019, 8:31 AM
It's Friday and that means it's time to be on the lookout for unexpected trade-related headlines, especially in the afternoon. Those sorts of newswir...
Thu, Nov 14 2019, 4:58 PM
By the end of last week, although there was potentially a sliver of hope afforded by Friday's highs being slightly lower than Thursday's, it looked li...
Thu, Nov 14 2019, 4:24 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower again today. Whereas it was a bit easier to be dismissive about recent improvements, they're starting to add up at this poi...
Thu, Nov 14 2019, 9:32 AM
Bonds gave us quite a scare last week as key technical ceilings gave way. High volume and concrete fundamental justification added validity to the mo...
Wed, Nov 13 2019, 5:44 PM
Mortgage rates have been more willing to move higher than lower recently. While that may continue to be the case in the near-term future, there have b...
Wed, Nov 13 2019, 10:03 AM
The most defining moment of the big 2019 bond rally was undoubtedly the August 1st tariff announcement and the resulting massive reaction in both yiel...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 5:01 PM
There are all kinds of bonds out there. We follow the 10yr Treasury even though this is a mortgage-specific site for reasons outlined here. Beyond T...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 5:00 PM
Mortgage rates had a bad October . November hasn't exactly been great either, with last Thursday being one of the worst days of the year in terms of d...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 9:44 AM
1.90% has been the most important, most dangerous ceiling for 10yr Treasury yields ever since a nasty selling spree stalled out there exactly 2 months...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 4:17 PM
Mortgage rates launched to their highest levels in more than 3 months yesterday for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was a series of comments fr...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 9:12 AM
If you don't expect anything good to happen for the bond market for the next few months, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. If, however, you expe...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 6:21 PM
It was a big, bad day for the bond market, although the size of the thing ended up getting pared down just a bit in the afternoon. Chalk that up to a...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 5:29 PM
Mortgage rates surged higher at a rapid pace for the second time this week. Taken together, the jump is the biggest of its kind since the big rate spi...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 10:37 AM
Yesterday brought a brief reprieve for bonds after the first 2 days of the week threatened to confirm a big picture shift toward higher rates (or at l...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 5:31 PM
Today's 10yr Treasury auction brought strong demand . Across the board, the auction stats were much stronger than expected. The only real problem w...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 5:12 PM
Mortgage rates were sharply higher yesterday , but managed to reverse course and make some gains today. The refreshing part of the improvement was tha...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 9:46 AM
Yesterday was a big, bad day for the bond market with the hotly-anticipated ISM Non-Manufacturing data coming in much stronger than expected. Bonds c...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 6:29 PM
Heading into last week's Fed announcement and economic data, the analysis was starting to get a bit gloomy. It wasn't the first time I talked about...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 6:07 PM
Mortgage rates were flat yesterday , but I warned that volatility could increase today. That turned out to be an understatement. Mortgage rates shot h...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 8:52 AM
Bonds had a reasonably rough day yesterday, but most of the weakness was reserved for Treasuries. MBS managed to escape with minimal damage. There w...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 7:09 PM
Treasuries tanked today and there were none of the sort of obvious catalysts you'd hope to see. I checked my math on that with people smarter than me...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 6:00 PM
Mortgage rates were flat to slightly higher today after dropping at fairly quick pace last week. In fact, if we're only examining one-day changes in r...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 10:23 AM
For some reason, I feel like the 2nd half of 2018 has been one of the most legitimately uncertain eras of bond trading in the post-crisis market envir...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 5:24 PM
Bonds were stronger overnight, riding a wave of buying demand on the heels of yesterday's weak econ data and US/China trade deal uncertainty. Some ma...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today after moving sharply lower yesterday. "Sharply," in this context, means that many lenders saw rates move lower by as ...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 9:41 AM
Bonds rallied big yesterday on a combination of factors. These included a rejection of the Trump administration's claimed timeline for the US/China t...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 5:59 PM
Most of the month of October was rotten for the bond market. Material progress on the trade deal, a leveling-off of economic data deterioration, and ...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 5:10 PM
Mortgage rates dropped like a rock today . This has absolutely nothing to do with yesterday's Fed rate cut, a little to do with the market reaction to...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 8:35 AM
Chicago PMI isn't always more important that PCE inflation. After all Core PCE is the Fed's favorite big-picture inflation reading (the thing they wa...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 3:52 PM
First things first: the Fed cut its policy rate today, but that doesn't mean they cut mortgage rates . Why? Because they can't and they don't--especia...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 2:02 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July September indicates that the labor market remains strong and that economic...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 10:08 AM
The bond market had a decent enough day yesterday as it managed to hold steady-to-slightly-stronger versus Monday's ugly closing levels. "Supply" (ak...
Tue, Oct 29 2019, 5:33 PM
The only way to read anything overly dramatic into today's bond trading would simply be to observe where it falls in the bigger picture. In other wor...
Tue, Oct 29 2019, 4:36 PM
You may have heard that the Federal Reserve is highly likely to cut rates this week. That is true. It's happening tomorrow . It would be a big surpris...
Tue, Oct 29 2019, 9:28 AM
Yesterday saw the bond market sell off in a fairly frustrating way. Granted, there was some justification for the initial overnight weakness courtesy...
