“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...
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...
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 and Thursday saw more selling, but each day ended with a solid recovery. Thursday was es...