Major holidays typically involve a full day market closure along with an "early close" on an adjacent day. This matters to rates because mortgage len...
Besides being enthralled with Tiger King and My Octopus Teacher four years ago, what do AL, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, MD, MA, NJ, NY, NM, NC, RI, SC, TN, VT...
The day begins with MBS in slightly weaker territory while Treasuries are slightly stronger. The discrepancy isn't really big enough to merit any urg...
Because mortgage rates are determined by trading levels in the bond market, when the market is closed, lenders don't update their rate offerings. As ...
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) releases monthly reports on both existing and pending home sales. The latter tracks signed purchase contrac...
Stop the presses! MBS are up almost 3/8ths of a point in early trading and 10yr yields have surged lower by 8bps. This is a massive and miraculous r...
“What do they call the 4th of July in nursing homes? In Depends Day.” (Another joke at the bottom.) There are plenty of elderly people, year ‘round, a...
Mortgage rates didn't move much today, and markets have been very quiet due to the holiday week. So we'll take a quick moment for a retrospective. I...
“I've just checked my home insurance policy and apparently if my blanket is stolen in the middle of the night, I’m not covered.” For many home owners,...
Not that any of this week's trading activity matters in the bigger picture, but things have been reasonably resilient after Monday's selling. Tuesday...
Mortgage rates are based on trading levels in the bond market and bond market activity has been extremely slow, as is normally the case during the Chr...
“My housemates are convinced our house is haunted. I don't get it. I've lived here for 273 years and haven’t noticed anything strange.” Many people wo...
Bonds are back in the office for a few days, at least in the sense that there are no holiday scheduled changes, and they've wasted no time getting rig...
Bonds are selling off for no obvious reasons for however many days in a row it's been (at least 2 unless you count last Thursday). Episodes like this ...
In the news, besides American Airlines grounding all flights (it’s back running now), is Burt, the 90-year-old crocodile from Crocodile Dundee, dying ...
Holidays have inconsistent impacts on mortgage rates because holiday's have inconsistent impacts on the bond market (and rates are dictated by the bon...
Those who spend any time digging into home construction and home sales figures in the U.S. know that, of the 4 census divisions, the South accounts fo...
The most interesting analysis we can offer today is a simple reminder that the word "idiosyncrasy" has an "S" at the end instead of the "C" that we're...
Why do ducks have feathers? To cover up their butt quacks. Why did Congress pass a three-month, stopgap funding bill? To cover their… never mind. But ...
The week's big story is still the big jump in rates that took place after Wednesday's Fed announcement. And while rates remain noticeably elevated on...
This week's biggest to-do in terms of economic reports was this morning's PCE inflation data. The fact that the Fed just said it was shifting its pri...
We received some anonymous feedback regarding recent rate commentary that serves as a good reminder that not everyone may be picking up what we're put...
Just in time for the big jump in interest rates seen after yesterday's Fed announcement, the latest Existing Home Sales data from the National Associa...
When I see a headline with “housing” and “crash” in it, I think it is merely clickbait, and the author is trying to attract readers. For example: The ...
The takeaway from yesterday's Fed announcement was twofold. First, the Fed is much closer to being done cutting rates than it anticipated in Septembe...
If anyone needed any further convincing that a Fed rate cut is no guarantee of lower mortgage rates, today is a great piece of evidence. Perhaps "gre...
Heading into the first part of December, mortgage rates were at their lowest levels in a month and a half. Much of the improvement from the recent hi...
The Census Bureau releases its report on New Residential Construction each month which offers 3 key metrics: building permits, housing starts, and hou...
Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. Since earlier in the year, labor market conditions have gene...
Bonds were moderately weaker overnight but have been pushing back in fits and starts in early trading. This has been a more uneven process for MBS as...
“When a woman says, ‘What?’ it’s not because she didn’t hear you. It’s because she’s giving you a chance to change what you said.” Things are always a...
Mortgage rates have been having a much calmer week compared to last week. Monday brought a modest decline versus last Friday and today's rates are ef...
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo publish the Housing Market Index (HMI) each month. The industry refers to this as "bu...
Number progressions can be deceiving and surprising. Thank you to Eric D. who reminded me of “The Wheat and the Chessboard” example, guaranteed to sur...
Last week wasn't great for mortgage rates. They moved higher on each of the 5 days. Moreover, there was a distinct lack of logical motivation from t...
Bonds were modestly stronger in the overnight session, and although domestic traders quickly erased the gains in the AM hours, the selling is currentl...
You don’t become cooler with age, but you do care progressively less about being cool, which is the only true way of being cool. This is called the “G...
There's no easy way to say it: it was a bad week for mortgage rates. Actually, it was a bad week for interest rates in general and mortgage rates typ...
Year-End Trading. No Big Deal
Bonds started stronger but lost ground quickly and inexplicably starting around 10:30am ET. This was a classic example of year-end trading causing random volatility. It had...