Tue, Aug 15 2023, 3:37 PM
Have you heard the one about higher mortgage rates? It's not a joke, sadly. It's just a thing that keeps happening. The week began with the average...
Tue, Aug 15 2023, 3:34 PM
Paradoxical Data Reaction, But it Didn't Last
Yesterday we examined last week's paradoxical bond sell-off in...
Tue, Aug 15 2023, 12:10 PM
One disclaimer is in order before anything else: Retail Sales data is not a consistent top tier market mover--especially in the past few years. Somet...
Mon, Aug 14 2023, 3:16 PM
We've had to use words like "effectively" or "nearly" in the past few weeks to refer to mortgage rates' proximity to the highest levels since November...
Mon, Aug 14 2023, 3:15 PM
Rates Are Changing The Rules in The Middle of The Game
You know the part in the movie with the plot twist wh...
Mon, Aug 14 2023, 12:53 PM
This week and next week are two of the most affected by summertime trading conditions (lower volume, lighter liquidity, seemingly random directional m...
Fri, Aug 11 2023, 7:19 PM
This was supposed to be the week where a key inflation report would cast a vote on the fate of interest rate momentum. The vote was ostensibly friendl...
Fri, Aug 11 2023, 3:46 PM
Bonds Can't Catch a Break
This week was supposed to be all about CPI confirming or rejecting the notion that...
Fri, Aug 11 2023, 12:17 PM
The Producer Price Index (PPI) has a sub-par record as a market mover for bonds when compared to CPI and other inflation metrics. But markets have be...
Thu, Aug 10 2023, 5:39 PM
OK, it may be a bit of stretch to consider today's jump a "surge" as it wasn't much bigger than some of the other increases seen in the past few weeks...
Thu, Aug 10 2023, 4:47 PM
Big Mystery Sell-Off, Not CPI or 30yr Auction or Fed Speakers
Today was CPI day and bonds lost a lot of grou...
Thu, Aug 10 2023, 11:06 AM
This is the catch when it comes to economic data with high potential to cause a big reaction in bonds: the key word is "potential." It takes a big be...
Wed, Aug 9 2023, 4:57 PM
Mortgage rates continued to move in a fairly narrow, sideways range on Wednesday--a trend that is very much in line with expectations from last Friday...
Wed, Aug 9 2023, 12:06 PM
Today is shaping up to be much less interesting than yesterday. Bonds didn't move nearly as much in the overnight session and began the day in roughl...
Tue, Aug 8 2023, 4:54 PM
Flash back to last Friday. The big jobs report came out and although it wasn't too far from forecasts, it was enough for the bond market to rally at ...
Tue, Aug 8 2023, 4:52 PM
MBS Underperform as Treasuries Benefit From Flight to Safety
When the market is sensitive to potential chang...
Tue, Aug 8 2023, 11:29 AM
Remember "global growth concerns?" That's the phrase that underpinned the rate reversal from long term highs in late 2018. It's definitely not reliv...
Mon, Aug 7 2023, 4:08 PM
Uneventful Monday as Traders Keep Options Open
Bonds traders are keeping options open, both literally and fi...
Mon, Aug 7 2023, 3:21 PM
Mortgage rates are starting out the new week at modestly higher levels compared to last Friday afternoon. The average change is very small. Many bor...
Mon, Aug 7 2023, 10:42 AM
Bonds gave back a bit less than half of Friday's gains in the overnight session with most of the losses seen after the start of European trading. Tha...
Fri, Aug 4 2023, 5:23 PM
In discussing mortgage rates near 23-year highs yesterday, we asked if there was any hope for relief and concluded that the only question was one of t...
Fri, Aug 4 2023, 5:15 PM
Tame Jobs Data Opens Door For Bonds to Stabilize
Rates were arguably oversold heading into today's jobs repo...
Fri, Aug 4 2023, 10:07 AM
With rates pushing up to super long term highs by yesterday afternoon, it may not have taken too much of a miss in today's jobs data for bonds to rall...
Thu, Aug 3 2023, 4:19 PM
Interest rates of all types have been under immense pressure since the beginning of 2022. This resulted in the the highest mortgage rates in more tha...
Thu, Aug 3 2023, 4:02 PM
Snowball Sell-Off Ahead of Jobs Report
The bond market isn't necessarily expecting the jobs report to come i...
Thu, Aug 3 2023, 11:16 AM
There's something rotten in the state of the bond market. After the early July CPI-driven rally seemed to put a ceiling on the range, there have been...
Wed, Aug 2 2023, 4:27 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher again today as the underlying bond market digested stronger economic data and details of the U.S. Treasury's increased bor...
Wed, Aug 2 2023, 3:47 PM
Yields Briefly Hit 8 Month Highs
Bond yields spiked to their highest levels in more than 8 months this morni...
Wed, Aug 2 2023, 12:36 PM
Moments after bonds closed yesterday, Fitch downgraded the credit rating for the U.S. government. Few would disagree that the political criticism (by...
Tue, Aug 1 2023, 5:52 PM
For all intents and purposes, the average 30yr fixed rate at the average lender is as high as it's been since November 2022. The number itself as far...
Tue, Aug 1 2023, 5:27 PM
Explaining Today's Inexplicable Weakness
If the bond market is well understood to be heavily "data dependent...
Tue, Aug 1 2023, 9:22 AM
The 8:20am CME Open is such a relevant event for the bond market sometimes that it has its own entry in our knowledge base. On any given morning, it'...
Mon, Jul 31 2023, 4:27 PM
Uneventful Start to What May be an Eventful Week
When there are multiple examples of important events that c...
Mon, Jul 31 2023, 3:54 PM
As the new week begins, mortgage rates are almost perfectly in line with those seen on Friday afternoon. Putting that in context, last Thursday and F...
Mon, Jul 31 2023, 12:05 PM
After the initial recovery from the Great Financial Crisis, and again after the Fed began to taper asset purchases at the end of 2013, there were two ...
Fri, Jul 28 2023, 4:43 PM
What to Make of This Week's Movement
Friday ended up being a slightly stronger session for bonds, but not in...
Fri, Jul 28 2023, 12:18 PM
Core PCE is often referred to as the Fed's preferred measure of inflation. The Employment Cost Index (ECI) has been one of the only few economic repo...
Thu, Jul 27 2023, 4:17 PM
The Fed hiked its policy rate yesterday and now today, mortgage rates jumped quite a bit higher. While there are already headlines drawing a connecti...
Thu, Jul 27 2023, 10:54 AM
Yesterday's closing headline and most condensed recap of Powell's press conference was simply: "data dependence continues." Indeed it does! This mor...
Wed, Jul 26 2023, 4:41 PM
As we discussed yesterday, it was entirely possible that today would bring a rate hike from the Fed that coincided with mortgage rates moving LOWER. ...
Wed, Jul 26 2023, 4:38 PM
Needle Threaded. Data Dependence Continues
In today's post-rate-hike press conference, Fed Chair Powell mana...
Wed, Jul 26 2023, 2:00 PM
Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand been expanding at a modest moderate pace. Job gains have been robust in...
Wed, Jul 26 2023, 10:50 AM
While there's always a chance that any of the year's 8 scheduled Fed announcements will thread the needle, today's installment is just as likely to pr...
Tue, Jul 25 2023, 4:37 PM
Mortgage rates moved moderately higher for the average lender at some point over the past 2 days. Some lenders bumped rates yesterday afternoon and t...
Tue, Jul 25 2023, 4:29 PM
Just a Bit More Pre-Fed Positioning
It ended up being a fairly uneventful day for the bond market despite st...
Tue, Jul 25 2023, 12:32 PM
After the last CPI report sent rates back down to the prevailing summertime range, we figured we'd be waiting until tomorrow's Fed day for the next bi...
Mon, Jul 24 2023, 5:05 PM
It was a fairly uneventful day for mortgage rates for the average lender--at least until the very end of the business day. Mortgage lenders prefer to...
Mon, Jul 24 2023, 4:52 PM
Slightly Weaker Momentum, But No Change in The Bigger Picture
Today's most notable market movement surrounde...
Mon, Jul 24 2023, 10:57 AM
Early last week, we shifted away from waiting on additional rally momentum from the previous week's rally and into a holding pattern ahead of this wee...
Fri, Jul 21 2023, 4:09 PM
After rising somewhat sharply yesterday, mortgage rates managed to find their footing on Friday's market session. Bonds typically face more volatilit...
