Mortgage rates were just a hair higher for the average lender on Thursday. The underlying bond market lost some ground following a stronger weekly Jobless Claims report and in sympathy with global bond market weakness overnight.  Because rates are based on bonds, when bonds are weaker, rates move higher. There are many different economic reports that deal with the jobs market, but none more important than the Employment Situation released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics--the one typically referred to simply as "the jobs report."  This month's jobs report will be released at 8:30am ET on Friday morning. Mortgage lenders don't set their rates for the day until the 9am hour at the earliest, and that's plenty of time for the data to send the bond market on a wild ride. If the jobs report is stronger than expected, rates will likely be higher, and vice versa. One final note: any economic report with high volatility potential can also have a limited impact. It all depends on how the data comes in. All we can know ahead of time is that the range of potential movement in rates is higher after reports like this.  

Wednesday had the potential to cause bigger volatility for rates due to the confluence of several important economic reports. If that data had been lopsided in one direction or the other, rates likely would have moved more. As it happened, the data was mixed. The net effect was an exceedingly modest drop in the average 30yr fixed rate. Despite the tiny move, this brings MND's 30yr fixed rate index back in line with the 2-month lows seen on several recent occasions. Bottom line: today ended up being uneventful in an inoffensive way.  From here, Friday's jobs report represents the same sort of potential for a volatile reaction.

Mortgage rates have been effectively unchanged for 5 straight days now. During that time, the MND 30yr fixed rate index hasn't moved by more than 0.01%. The average borrower would see almost exactly the same terms on any of these days. The absence of volatility isn't much of a surprise given the time of year and the lack of important economic data. But that changes tomorrow with the release of two labor market reports and ISM's service sector report. Individually, none of these are as heavy hitting as Friday's forthcoming jobs report, but if they all sing a similar tune, it could definitely get rates moving (for better or worse).  Specifically, if the data is stronger, it would likely push rates higher and vice versa.

The two days of 2025 with the lowest rates were September 16th and October 28th. Both days happened to be the Tuesdays that preceded Fed rate cuts. On both occasions, those rate cuts were delivered with other comments from the Fed that the bond market didn't like.  The net effect is/was two very obvious dips and spikes. The second half of December saw the average 30yr fixed mortgage rate inch closer and closer to those previous lows, but we're still not quite there yet. Today was just another day in that saga as the average lender held right in line with Friday's latest levels. Bottom line: at current levels, any day that rates spend holding steady or moving microscopically lower will technically result in the lowest rates since October 28th. It would take a more noticeable improvement to break below that floor. When and if that happens, rates will be the lowest since early 2023. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Heading into the week, we knew there was a high bar for any legitimate mortgage rate fireworks. In addition to a dearth of scheduled events with the power to cause volatility, the last two weeks of the year don't tend to see big changes in the bond market.  There are exceptions, but 2025 wasn't one of them. In fact, bond yields and mortgage rates have been locked in a narrow, sideways range since September as the market waits for the most important economic reports to hit their stride again after being hobbled by the government shutdown. Yes, the big-ticket reports were already released on December, but the market expects them to be gradually more representative in the coming months. Next week brings several of these reports including Friday's jobs report--arguably the most important on any given month. With this data, we should see the return of more directional volatility in the rate market. The direction will depend on whether the data is stronger or weaker than expected. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]