Stocks Got Rocked. Bonds Picked Up Some Slack Chipmakers and other tech names got absolutely rocked today starting at the 9:30am NYSE open. Hedge funds dumped semiconductors like a bad habit early and often (Sandisk down 20% anyone?!), and with tech comprising so much of the 2026 growth story, the rest of the stock market followed suit. Bonds were a hair weaker at 9:30am, but that rapidly changed due to the magnitude of the equity market exodus. Still, 10yr yields falling a mere 5-6bps is pretty underwhelming considering stocks had their worst day in over a year and hit their worst levels…
Yesterday, it was a drop below 7.25%. Today, the 7.20% floor was broken. Mortgage rates have been on a tear over the past month and are now back to 7.17% for the average lender. If there's one thing that deserves most of the credit for this bull run, it's the extreme bearishness in tech stocks. The NASDAQ is now down roughly 14% from the October highs and the drop perfectly coincides with the drop in bond yields and interest rates. The road ahead is fairly simple: if tech continues causing panic in stocks, interest rates can continue to benefit. The caveat is that the benefit to rates…
Why am I a sucker for stories like, “What Do the Twins in the Shining Look Like Now?”? Is the American public a sucker for not being more concerned that no politician seems concerned about the burgeoning deficit? Will there be any “fiscal conservatives” in Congress, or the White House? Here in Dallas, one of the topics, of course, is the election. Yesterday stocks rallied and rates both dropped, reminding us that they don’t have a consistent inverse relationship, mostly on removing the uncertainty about the election. Where do we go with reducing regulatory burdens for credit-worthy borrowers,…
Bonds are starting the day a few bps weaker. 10yr yields are just over 4.90% and considering they were almost 50bps higher a month ago, you're free to go about your business today without scrutinizing this morning's baby bump. It could be purely incidental. But for those who demand scapegoats, the easiest suspect to blame would be corporate debt issuance from Apple, which coincided with bonds breaking away from their overnight stock market correlation. In the bigger picture, we could consider investors might wonder if the NASDAQ just had another summer-sized correction and might now find…
Elections, Oil, and Neocloud Stocks, Oh My! There are 3 publicly traded neocloud stocks that are big enough to care about. All 3 hit new long term lows today (ranging from 6 months to over a year). All 3 continue to track very well with the recent bond market rally. This is simplest way to approach today's gains. The more you wander from that path, the more complex and circular the logic becomes. Oil prices have plummeted almost $20since last Friday. Seems like it should matter, and a few traders might agree. Then there's the election, which caused a surge in the broader stock…
30yr fixed rates moved over 7.25% on September 23rd, 2026 and continued to long-term highs of 7.61% by early October. But starting in mid October, rates began declining as the market grew increasingly concerned about the tech sector. Until today 7.27% marked the floor of the present rally. Now the floor is lower. Rates began the day moderately lower with an average top-tier 30yr fixed rate of 7.25%. Reasons can be debated, but may include: Investors coming off the sidelines after mid-term election uncertainty was cleared up Ongoing trouble for the neocloud portion of the tech sector (i.e.…
Yes, there was/is an election which is certainly a discussion topic here in Dallas, but regardless of the results, many people who don’t own homes want to buy one, and people who do may be facing life changes and could use personal advice. Here’s a trend: Homeowners who won’t give up a 3 percent mortgage are becoming landlords instead. Do you have a product (and underwriting) to help them at every stage? Another reason for personal consulting with borrowers: A fixed-rate mortgage may remain stable for thirty years, but the cost of owning that home does not. Property taxes continue to rise,…
There are several moving parts to today's trading levels, but the TL;DR is that bonds are holding modest gains so far despite some 2-way volatility. The overnight session started out with the strongest gains of the day, clearly coinciding with a stock market swoon. Stock prices and bond yields bounced higher when the senate majority was called around 11:30pm ET. Bonds quickly unwound most of the overnight gains before stabilizing sideways at slightly stronger levels. Stocks have been rising ever since. In other words, there was no magical relief in the bond market about political…
Early Strength Thwarted by Data and Resilience in Equities There are several ways to view today's bond market movement and none of them are terribly important. Sharply lower oil prices had a small, friendly impact on bonds early in the day following more hopeful war-related headlines, but context is important. A 3-4 dollar drop in oil merely got 10yr yields back in line with overnight lows. In other words, there's still precious little correlation here. Oil reversed course fairly quickly and bonds got hit harder by strong JOLTS data (job openings and labor turnover survey). Correlation with…
Well... they can't all be winners. It seems as if rates could do no wrong over the past 3 days with each marking the lowest level in more than a month for the average top tier 30yr fixed rate. Today wasn't a winner, but it wasn't exactly bad. Apart from the past 3 days, today would still have been the lowest rate in more than a month, and it was only 0.03% higher to boot. So what happened? First off, when we're talking about a 0.03% change day-over-day, it's not particularly important to investigate causation because that level of movement falls in the "incidental" category. Nonetheless,…
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