Apr 13, 2024 | Finance
Wednesday was one of the worst days in decades in terms of single-day upward movement in mortgage rates. Thursday added a bit more insult to the injury. The resulting levels were the highest since November 2023. We should be thankful, then, that Friday managed to...
Apr 13, 2024 | Finance
Time to Hurry Up and Wait Again Friday ended up being reasonably pleasant, but mostly uneventful. Gains were in place from the overnight session on a combination of European economic data and central banker comments. Geopolitical headlines may have played a role at...
Apr 12, 2024 | Finance
Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index caused a brutally fast spike in mortgage rates. It wasn’t notable for taking us to exceptionally high levels (October 2023 was much higher), but it was one of the biggest single-day jumps. Either way, it easily took the...
Apr 11, 2024 | Finance
Mortgage rates surged at a pace seen only one other time since October 2022. The average lender moved up by 0.28%, which is functionally equivalent to the 0.29% seen after the February 2nd jobs report. In fact, today was arguably worse because the Feb 2nd example...
Apr 11, 2024 | Finance
A Really Bad Day For The Bond Market To reiterate the point made in today’s morning commentary, there was a mismatch between the size of the beat in the core inflation data (0.4 vs 0.3) and the size of the move in the bond market. This wasn’t a glaringly...
Apr 10, 2024 | Finance
The interest rate for conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) again topped 7 percent last week, but mortgage application activity still squeezed out a tiny gain. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of application...
Apr 8, 2024 | Finance
Uneventful, Sideways Day After Initial Losses Today had the dubious distinction of seeing the highest yields in more than 4 months while also being uneventful and largely sideways in terms of bond market momentum. The steeper losses were limited to the overnight...
Apr 8, 2024 | Finance
Mortgage rates moved up somewhat abruptly today as the bond market lost more ground over the weekend. Rates are driven primarily by bonds, but mortgage lenders tend to only update rates once per day unless the bond market is moving very quickly. With that in mind,...
Apr 8, 2024 | Finance
Bonds began the new week with follow-through selling overseas. Losses were steady and linear in both Asia and Europe. It’s tempting to chalk up some of the weakness to a big beat in German industrial production data, but Treasury yields were already up to...
Apr 8, 2024 | Finance
This week’s increase in U.S. mortgage rates has added to the skepticism about any significant reductions in interest rates for prospective homebuyers in the near future. As affordability issues intensify and consumer hope for lower interest rates this year...
