Moderate Weakness. No New Reasons Bonds lost ground on Friday, but not for any new, overt reasons. At times, weakness coincided with higher oil prices, but we don't love that explanation considering oil was higher on Monday when yields were substantially lower. PPI data is also not a compelling market mover as it came in right in line with forecasts and doesn't look like it will pass much through to core PCE. Given that short term yields rallied (2yr still down 2bps), much of today's volatility could simply be explained by curve trading amid lighter liquidity. In the bigger picture, the…
In 3 short days, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate has risen 0.32% to 7.50%, erasing a vast majority of the improvement seen over the past 5 weeks. Today's increase wasn't nearly as sharp as each of the previous 2 days, but it wasn't small either. Notably, rates went higher today even though the underlying bond market held reasonably steady. On most days, a flat bond market would result in far less rate movement. Today was an exception largely due to timing. Yesterday afternoon saw bonds lose ground late in the day--too late for the average lender to go to the trouble of changing…
Existing-home sales had another rough month, and just hit their lowest level since August 2010. Mortgage rates are largely to blame. The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reported a 5.5% monthly decline and an 8.8% year-over-year decline , bringing the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate to just 3.75 million . Chief Economist Lawrence Yun attributed the weakness to mortgage rates, which have tested levels not seen since 2000. Inventory continued to improve modestly, even as sales slowed. Total housing inventory reached 1.59 million units , up 1.3% from September and 4.6% year over…
Mortgage applications bounced back in the latest week, with both purchase and refinance activity moving higher. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 6.2% increase in total application volume for the week ending November 6, 2026. NOTE: That Nov 6th date is important as it marked the bottom of the range for interest rates after a nice decline that began in mid October. Rates have risen sharply since then so all that follows is likely a bit of a retrospective. In other words, application demand will probably fall again in next week's data thanks to this week's higher rates. …
Seen on a fortune cookie: Your destiny is to spend hours proving you are not robots on websites run by robots, just to read articles written by robots.” Is Big Tech reminiscent of Big Tobacco? Chrisman LLC had a backup system to replace Outlook being down… Meanwhile United Is restricting AI Agents from booking flights. Next week I head to St. Louis and Kansas City while Robbie heads to the Texas MBA. Local and state organizations are doing well, and certainly have their “fingers on the pulse” of the industry which includes the pros and cons of technology. For example, data breaches have…
This morning's Producer Price Index (PPI) came out as expected. The components that impact core PCE were also uneventful. Stocks and bonds initially rallied but the gains were erased in less than 20 minutes. Higher oil prices coincided with the bounce toward higher yields, but the longer-term correlation remains weak enough that we wouldn't read too much into that. After 9:30am, stocks are selling off enough to bring bond yields just a hair lower from intraday highs. All-in-all, we suspect the modest weakness in 10yr Treasuries is best viewed through the lens of traders squaring yesterday's…
Why Did Bonds Sell Off So Sharply Today? Bonds sold off fairly sharply today and the motivations transcended today's menu of market moving events. If we wanted to focus only that menu, it's main selections included Trump comments on the U.S. not needing a deal with Iran, a stronger showing in stocks, NVDA drama failing to tank tech stocks, and a bevy of hawkish Fed comments. To be fair, the selling perfectly aligned with Fed rate expectations for the middle of 2027, but our contention is that those expectations moved more quickly than the underlying motivations suggested. In order to round…
Thursdays are frequently "fun" in the world of mortgage rate reporting because that's when Freddie Mac releases its weekly rate survey. Despite updating its methodology several years ago, Freddie's survey still relies on rate quotes entered by humans and it is still an average of the 5 business days ending on the Wednesday of any given week. That means Freddie's survey result can be quite outdated on weeks with significant movement on Tue-Thu. Why should we care? Simply put, the Freddie survey has been around since the 70s and is still widely cited by many news agencies as the week's…
“What is the most common question Finnish detectives ask suspects? ‘What were you doing the night between November and May?’” There will be less daylight in the Northern Hemisphere until the Winter Solstice on December 21st, with lots of weather, and mortgage news, between now and then. Old mortgage vets recall the end of November as traditionally being the time that Freddie and Fannie announce their loan limits for the next year. Given the increase in non-Agency lending over the last few years, this has lost some of its significance, but it will still have a ripple effect through the…
Bonds began the overnight session in roughly unchanged territory and were mostly sideways until just after 8am when Trump said "we don't need a deal with Iran." Oil prices and bond yields spiked in response. There was a modest recovery in response to NVDA announcing Huang resigning as CEO but now more selling pressure as the NASDAQ recovers at the 9:30am NYSE open.
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