Tue, Feb 28 2017, 2:32 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today in most cases, but not by much. More interesting is the fact that rates held their ground as well as they did consid...
Mon, Feb 27 2017, 8:31 AM
The past 5 business days of bond market rallies brought yields right to the lower edge of 2017's range . We had been tracking these movements in ter...
Mon, Feb 27 2017, 5:34 PM
Several events helped get investors back in a riskier mood to begin the new week. Overnight reports of the "status quo" candidate polling better in...
Mon, Feb 27 2017, 4:47 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher after a strong run to the lowest levels of the year as of last Friday. In general, financial markets moved toward...
Fri, Feb 24 2017, 8:50 AM
Bond markets are looking for their 6th straight victory today. Each of the past 5 days have seen yields end the day lower than they opened. While ...
Fri, Feb 24 2017, 5:33 PM
"For no apparent reason" is a bit of an overstatement. There are several plausible reasons that bonds could be rallying as well as they are at the mo...
Fri, Feb 24 2017, 4:26 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for 3rd straight day (and the 5th time in the past 6 days). That makes this the best winning streak of the year and it brin...
Thu, Feb 23 2017, 8:32 AM
Rarely do we see such a well-behaved and long-lasting consolidation trend in bond markets. This refers to a series of higher lows and lower highs. ...
Thu, Feb 23 2017, 4:53 PM
More than any other day in recent memory, today's trend was remarkably narrow for bond markets. That's not to say it was "flat," though. Indeed, the...
Thu, Feb 23 2017, 3:03 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for the 4th time in 5 days today, bringing them to their lowest levels since February 9th. The caveat to any discussion of ...
Wed, Feb 22 2017, 8:45 AM
Today brings a calendar item that contains the letters "FOMC." That's typically a big deal. While it could also be a big deal today, the "FOMC Minut...
Wed, Feb 22 2017, 5:05 PM
Today's trading session was certainly more interesting than yesterday's--especially if we're counting overnight trading hours. European bond market...
Wed, Feb 22 2017, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates began the day decidedly lower than yesterday, but most lenders ended up revising rates higher in the mid-morning hours due to bond mark...
Tue, Feb 21 2017, 8:38 AM
It's another slow week for bond markets in terms of pure "economic data." The only relevant reports are Existing Home Sales (Wed), New Home Sales (...
Tue, Feb 21 2017, 4:56 PM
Bonds came back from their 3-day weekend in weaker territory to start the overnight session. Losses were mild at first, and then became moderate ...
Tue, Feb 21 2017, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates were just slightly higher today, leaving them roughly in the center of a range that's persisted since mid-November. During that time th...
Fri, Feb 17 2017, 8:39 AM
It's a real dud of a day in terms of excitement on the event/econ calendar. There are no significant economic reports and no potentially market-mov...
Fri, Feb 17 2017, 4:17 PM
For all the sturm and drang seen in the middle of the week, trading levels somehow managed to hit today's 3pm close almost perfectly in line with Mo...
Fri, Feb 17 2017, 3:13 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for a 2nd straight day. This helps undo virtually all of the damage done by the first 3 days of the week. In other words, t...
Thu, Feb 16 2017, 8:31 AM
Today begins with another glut of economic data at 8:30am, although it's fairly tame compared to yesterday's CPI/Retail Sales duo. Housing Starts are...
Thu, Feb 16 2017, 5:38 PM
As far as bond market rallies go, today's was one of the most mysterious in recent memory. Several conclusions will have to be jumped to in order to ...
Thu, Feb 16 2017, 4:51 PM
After spending the past 5 business days moving higher, mortgage rates finally found their footing today. The improvement came in phases, with today's ...
Wed, Feb 15 2017, 8:33 AM
Fed Chair Yellen takes the hot-seat at Congress for a 2nd day today, but this time in front of the always-cheerful and relentlessly intelligent folks ...
Wed, Feb 15 2017, 5:19 PM
When it comes to the most simplistic charts of bond market trends, there are two "bad things" that rates could do in the current context. One of the...
Wed, Feb 15 2017, 4:29 PM
Mortgage rates rose for the 5th day in a row following a higher reading in this morning's inflation data and an upbeat Retail Sales report. In general...
Tue, Feb 14 2017, 8:29 AM
A series of "higher lows" and "lower highs" is the defining characteristic of a consolidation pattern . The following chart highlights the current c...
Tue, Feb 14 2017, 5:22 PM
Bond markets (and markets in general) periodically experience an interesting phenomenon whereby traders are determined to make one of two bets followi...
Tue, Feb 14 2017, 4:34 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher for the 4th straight day today, following Fed Chair Janet Yellen's congressional testimony. It wasn't that Yellen's speech...
Mon, Feb 13 2017, 8:56 AM
The week ahead sees data and relevant events come out in concentrated gluts, almost exclusively in the middle of the week. Everyone's favorite headli...
Mon, Feb 13 2017, 5:23 PM
With essentially nothing on the calendar today, and quite a lot on the calendar over the next 2 days, it's not too surprising to see bonds continue th...
Mon, Feb 13 2017, 4:35 PM
Mortgage rates stood at their lowest levels in more than 2 months as of last Wednesday, but have since moved higher for 3 straight days . This leaves ...
Fri, Feb 10 2017, 8:45 AM
This mostly data-free week ends today with one of the only potential market movers ranking as "2nd tier" or better. But Consumer Sentiment at 10am i...
Fri, Feb 10 2017, 4:56 PM
It was an exceptionally slow day for bond markets with the exception of some tension, at times, during the morning hours. Treasuries and MBS both beg...
Fri, Feb 10 2017, 3:05 PM
Mortgage rates continued higher today, bringing them back in line with Monday's levels. Part of the rise was due to weaker trading levels in bond mark...
Thu, Feb 9 2017, 8:39 AM
To everything, there is a season.
The sun also rises.
Nothing lasts forever.
Regardless of the words used to describe the phenomenon, there i...
Thu, Feb 9 2017, 5:57 PM
This morning's commentary invoked some figurative language evokes notions of seasonality (have you ever seen invoke and evoke used in the same sentenc...
Thu, Feb 9 2017, 5:26 PM
Mortgage rates finally moved higher after three straight days of solid improvement. If it's any consolation, today's rise wasn't on par with even one ...
Wed, Feb 8 2017, 8:58 AM
As the socioeconomic fates of the world's biggest countries travel down the road of life, sometimes it's smooth sailing and sometimes there's a 17 ca...
Wed, Feb 8 2017, 5:37 PM
Bonds made it 3 days in a row today--rallying to the best levels since mid-January. In fact, apart from Jan 17th, today's closing yields were the l...
Wed, Feb 8 2017, 4:47 PM
Mortgage rates fell for the third straight day today. Each day has seen moderate improvement. Taken together, they add up to a strong move lower from ...
Tue, Feb 7 2017, 8:50 AM
Bonds Are Officially in a Positive Short-Term Trend. This was also the case heading into mid January, but steady selling following Yellen's speech (J...
Tue, Feb 7 2017, 5:41 PM
Salient, easily-identifiable motivations for bond market movements continue to be elusive. The times of the day where liquidity (numbers of buyer...
Tue, Feb 7 2017, 4:48 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower again today as investors remained cautious amid political uncertainty at home and abroad. Stocks began the day higher but l...
Mon, Feb 6 2017, 8:28 AM
There is almost no significant economic data on tap for this week. Friday is really the only contender with Import/Export Prices and Consumer Senti...
Mon, Feb 6 2017, 5:36 PM
Today was the sort of day you could ask 10 market pundits about and get 10 different answers as to the source of inspiration. From a prevalence sta...
Mon, Feb 6 2017, 4:36 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower today as investors sought safe haven from global political risk in the bond market. When investor demand for bonds increase...
Fri, Feb 3 2017, 8:27 AM
Given that this week's ADP employment numbers and the employment component of the ISM Manufacturing numbers both came in much stronger than expected, ...
Fri, Feb 3 2017, 6:17 PM
Nonfarm payrolls came in at 227k vs a median forecast of 175k. This fact, in and of itself, would almost always be grounds for bond market weakness, ...
Fri, Feb 3 2017, 5:28 PM
Mortgage rates were noticeably lower this morning as bond markets responded favorably to the important jobs report. While the headline job growth was ...
Thu, Feb 2 2017, 8:28 AM
Occasionally, these Thursday's before NFP have very little by way of relevant economic data. Today is arguably such a Thursday. With us as always is...
