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...
Bonds can't seem to catch a break this week. Data hasn't necessarily been unfriendly either with both CPI and PPI hitting forecasts at the core month...
“They say that mafia members are nasty people. But while growing up, I lived next door to one mafia member, and he was actually a nice guy. In fact, e...
It's been a bummer of a week for mortgage rates with modest to moderate increases every day so far. Adding insult to injury is the fact that there ha...
What? You’re a builder who’s short on nails? Well, bring in some folks from Japan… they don’t necessarily need them. Of the nearly 300 types of nails ...
This morning's Producer Price Index (PPI) came in hotter than expected in year-over-year terms (3.4 vs 3.2 at the core level). Traders were mostly abl...
Mortgage rates were having a pretty decent day at first. The bond market was only slightly weaker overnight (implies some upward pressure on rates), ...
The Mortgage Bankers Association is out with the latest survey of mortgage applications and refinance activity led the charge this week. In fact, pur...
Today's headline and core CPI readings were both perfectly in line with forecasts. After the data came out, bonds rallied and Fed Funds Futures moved...
“I love Christmas lights! They remind me of the people who voted for (insert name of politician). They all hang together, half of them don’t work, and...
Between November 18th and December 6th, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate moved down from 7.08 to 6.68. A 0.40% drop is rather significan...
“To the paranoid people who check behind shower curtains for murderers: if you find one, what's your plan?” What’s the Fed’s plan? The Federal Reserve...
Yesterday's closing commentary also noted "inconsequential weakness," and there's not really a better way to refer to this morning's modest losses. O...
Mortgage rates ended last week with an impressive drop to the lowest levels in more than a month and a half. Today's rates ended up being the 2nd low...
“Wi-Fi outages are the new snow days!” Without the internet or cable, would we return to relying on newspapers, radios, and network channels for news?...
Up until last Friday, 10yr yields closed at 4.17% for 5 days in a row. While that's technically "resistance," we're not complaining considering that's...
As of last week, rates were showing some signs of resilience, but they had to wait for the true test from this week's jobs report. Spoiler alert: they...
“Today’s three-year-olds can switch on laptops and open their favorite apps. When I was three, I ate mud.” Times change. Remember when homeowner’s ins...
We all know that today's jobs report is the most important economic data on an given month. We also know that a higher payroll count tends to be bad f...
It's been a remarkably calm week for mortgage rates, and a fairly decent one relative to several recent examples. The average top tier 30yr fixed rat...
Don’t steal packages off of porches… you never know what will be inside them… A very low-tech attempt at dissuading thieves. On the flip side, what do...
Mortgage lenders generally try to avoid setting rates more than once per day, but they will make changes if the underlying bond market is moving enoug...
Bonds drifted steadily higher in yield during the overnight session with most of the weakness seen after European markets opened. The net effect was r...
My cat Myrtle never had to worry too much about things like… money. Elon Musk, however, can’t seem to catch a break and his $56 billion (yes, with a “...
Dots and Powell Were Much Less Friendly Than Markets Expected
We knew the bond market was expecting a hawkish shift in the dot plot (the chart that shows each Fed member's expectation for the Fed Funds Rate i...