Mon, Oct 23 2023, 4:51 PM
Mortgage rates began the day in higher territory due to overnight weakness in the bond market. Bonds (like US Treasuries or the MBS that determine mo...
Mon, Oct 23 2023, 4:50 PM
Big Rally, But Not Big Enough to Demand an Interesting Explanation
It is unfortunate that, due to timing and...
Fri, Oct 20 2023, 4:21 PM
Mortgage rates finally broke the 8% ceiling this week after months of gradual upward movement in the 7% range. At the same time, Existing Home Sales f...
Thu, Oct 19 2023, 4:46 PM
There have been some more abrupt rate spikes in the recent past--days where the average mortgage rate has risen by more than an eighth of a percent (t...
Thu, Oct 19 2023, 11:39 AM
This morning is off to what could potentially be described as a "weird" start. If it's not weird, it's at least interesting. Why weird? Bonds ralli...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 4:54 PM
Our rate index has rapidly grown in popularity and exposure in recent years because it is timely and because it accounts for upfront costs in a way th...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 4:45 PM
Just Another "Worst Day Since..." Type of Day
In a rising rate environment where long term boundaries have r...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 4:22 PM
Inflation and economic growth... Regardless of our thoughts on the underlying reasons, these two factors have played a key role in skyrocketing rates...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 4:04 PM
Strong Retail Sales Data and Logical Consequences
Today's morning commentary may as well be the recap. Very...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 11:46 AM
In addition to looking at economic data, the Fed also gets an earful from their "contacts" in the community. One would have to assume that those cont...
Mon, Oct 16 2023, 4:22 PM
Last week was mostly good for mortgage rates, even if the goodness was made possible in large part by the badness of the previous week. By Friday, ra...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 7:26 PM
After hitting the highest levels in decades last week, mortgage rates dropped sharply at the beginning of this week. At first glance, this was a class...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 4:25 PM
Decent Recovery But MBS Underperform
On Thursday, 10yr yields came close to spiking 20bps, trough to peak, i...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 12:45 PM
Bonds drifted gradually but consistently intro stronger overnight. We could point to a few events and a few pieces of data (softer Chinese inflation,...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 4:23 PM
Mortgage rates have enjoyed 2 days of uncommonly big gains. Granted, they come at the expense of horrific events and an exceptionally high starting p...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 4:13 PM
Bonds Snap Back to Reality on Higher Core Services CPI
Even before this week's rally began, we knew to be on...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 11:04 AM
After a few days where it's been somewhat challenging to sort through the most relevant market movement considerations (war vs Fed speakers vs technic...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 4:45 PM
The holiday-shortened week began yesterday with a substantial decline in average mortgage rates. Caveats abound, however. They include things like t...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 4:44 PM
Why Are Bonds Still Rallying?
Bonds have seen only a few examples of a solid 2-day rally over the past few m...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 12:07 PM
This morning's only upper tier economic report, The Producer Price Index (PPI), came out a bit hotter than expected with a fairly significant revision...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 4:40 PM
The average mortgage lender is quoting a top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate that is nearly a quarter of a percent lower than the same scenario last Fri...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 4:32 PM
Rate Rally More to Do With Fed or Flight to Safety?
Bonds rallied fairly sharply to start the holiday-shorte...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 12:13 PM
News of the Hamas bombing of Israel dominated headlines after markets closed last week. As the situation escalated over the weekend, financial market...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 7:06 PM
Rates were already high coming into this week. As of last Friday, that meant an average 30yr fixed rate just under 7.5%. As of this Friday, we're clos...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 4:33 PM
Logical Reaction to Jobs Data, But Why The Mid-Day Bounce?
Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), the headline component of...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 11:18 AM
This week has brought a series of fairly simple mornings with the initial reaction to economic reports playing out in a logical direction. Monday: st...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 4:17 PM
Thursday's Rally Changes Nothing Ahead of Jobs Report
While bonds definitely had a logical reaction to this ...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 3:33 PM
For the first time in nearly a month, the bond market (which dictates day to day mortgage rate movement) managed to string together two winning days i...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 12:16 PM
Time for another installment of "finding a narrative to fit the price action." In other words, bonds aren't doing what we'd expect based on this morn...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates began the day at new multi-decade highs, but only by a small margin over yesterday. This was counterintuitive at first glance because ...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 4:15 PM
Surprisingly Calm and Logical Rally
Today's economic data came in either flat or noticeably weaker depending...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 12:01 PM
Bonds had a scary overnight session with 10s hitting highs of 4.884 around 3am ET. They rallied a full 15bps over the next 6 hours, most recently wit...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 3:27 PM
Mortgage rates were already close to the highest levels in more than 20 years yesterday--an unpleasant milestone that was easily surpassed after today...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 3:26 PM
"Higher For Longer" Fears Becoming a Reality After JOLTS
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) ...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 11:25 AM
In the wake of the Fed announcement from 2 weeks ago, one key component of our bearish thesis was that bonds had to brace for the potential impact tha...
Mon, Oct 2 2023, 4:39 PM
The average didn't quite make it back to the multidecade highs seen last week, but the average borrower would see little--if any--difference in today'...
Mon, Oct 2 2023, 4:39 PM
Bonds Blasted by Data and Stop-Gap
The stop-gap bill that averted the government shutdown was worth some ins...
Mon, Oct 2 2023, 10:05 AM
Nearly 2 weeks ago, the Fed announcement (specifically, the economic projections and dot plot) kicked off a repricing trend in the bond market otherwi...
Fri, Sep 29 2023, 5:57 PM
It depends quite a bit on the lender in question, but at some point between yesterday morning and this morning, the average lender dropped rates at th...
Fri, Sep 29 2023, 3:51 PM
Bonds Almost Hold Onto Gains Ahead of Shutdown Uncertainty
Bonds improved moderately overnight, adding onto ...
Fri, Sep 29 2023, 12:24 PM
The trading day began on a fairly positive note with a strong hand-off from Europe and reasonably friendly inflation data at 8:30am. After a few mome...
Thu, Sep 28 2023, 4:11 PM
Bonds Bounce Despite Stronger Data
Bonds lost ground overnight and logically added to the losses after the m...
Thu, Sep 28 2023, 3:28 PM
The past few days have seen rates surge to new multi-decade highs with the average lender quoting 7.6+ for top tier conventional 30yr fixed scenarios....
Thu, Sep 28 2023, 12:09 PM
Bonds lost ground modestly overnight. Contrast that to the past few trading sessions that have seen gains in Europe followed by selling in the US. T...
Wed, Sep 27 2023, 5:10 PM
It's with no great pleasure (none of any kind, for that matter) that we find ourselves in a position to report, yet again, that mortgage rates have sa...
Wed, Sep 27 2023, 3:36 PM
What is "Repricing" in The Broader Context, And How is it Moving Markets?
We've been here before and we'll b...
Wed, Sep 27 2023, 12:26 PM
Normally, when the bond market is in a pervasive selling trend, we'll see a day or two of reprieve amidst the carnage. Frequently, such days are frie...
Tue, Sep 26 2023, 4:28 PM
In terms of day-over-day changes, today's mortgage rate movement was forgettable. The average borrower wouldn't see much of a difference from yesterd...
Tue, Sep 26 2023, 4:25 PM
Stronger Start, Weaker Finish, No Real Reason
Bonds improved in the overnight session, but reversed course t...
Tue, Sep 26 2023, 12:12 PM
The seemingly never-ending sea of red continues. And for good measure, this one began with a bit of hope in the form of an overnight rally that got 1...
