Mon, Oct 16 2023, 10:00 AM
The old joke, “Why don’t the Phillies have a website? Because they can’t string three W’s together!” is no longer true. The Phillies are doing just fi...
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,...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 10:02 AM
Today, as I head to Chicago (from the Native American word shikaakwa, for the wild onion) on my way to Philadelphia, I received this note. “Rob, why i...
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, 11:10 AM
Today is 101223. Of course you know, by looking ahead to the last day of 2023, that it will be 123123. By then, how many times do you think you’ll hea...
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...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 10:40 AM
“My dog is really worried about the rising price of groceries, with a can of dog food now costing $3. That’s $21 in dog money.” As I travel and speak ...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 10:27 AM
A reduction in adjustable mortgage rates led some cost-stressed borrowers to forsake fixed-rate security and drove mortgage application volume up slig...
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...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 10:26 AM
“I dance like people wish they weren't watching.” Someone sure is watching, and counting, empty houses. Lack of available housing inventory has helped...
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...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 10:43 AM
National MI turned heads yesterday by announcing its temporary increase to AUS conforming loan amounts, despite the official FHFA word not coming unti...
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...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 10:04 AM
Hal M. writes, “Monday is a holiday. The observance reminded me of the small Italian parade we had in Maine on Columbus Day. All the marchers were und...
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...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 10:27 AM
I head to Vancouver, WA, this morning for a Banner Bank event and will probably have the option of Wi-Fi on the plane. How is it that NASA is able to ...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 9:07 AM
As mortgage rates continued to climb, mortgage applications took their biggest hit since mid-April. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Ma...
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, 1:24 PM
A tempest in a teapot or the start of an uprising? Redfin, the publicly owned Seattle-based real estate company with 50 offices nationwide, announced ...
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...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 11:00 AM
How will you always know that this Commentary is not produced by some AI thingy? Because of mistakes like yesterday, leaving Illinois off the list of ...
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, 10:32 AM
As President Jimmy Carter celebrated his 99th birthday seven months into hospice, welcome to the 4th quarter! (Will lenders experience any “Q-4-ia”? S...
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...
Fri, Sep 29 2023, 10:25 AM
Shutdown or no shutdown, the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Week is approaching, focused on how these behemoths tip the scale. Here’s your tip of th...
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, 12:47 PM
Pending home sales failed to add a third month onto the mini rally it staged in June and July. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its P...
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...
Thu, Sep 28 2023, 10:23 AM
Seen on someone’s laptop here in Phoenix: “If Pete Davidson can date a Kardashian, you can be a homeowner.” From a business viewpoint, if you think mo...
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...
