Average mortgage rates drifted slightly higher to end the week, though they remained under the levels seen on Monday and Tuesday. Even then, none of this week's movement was especially abrupt. That's interesting considering there was a decent amount of economic data throughout the week. It could be that the rate market is simply waiting for the heavier hitting events on the horizon. Next Tuesday's Job Openings data is on the watch list. It will be the first major October employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the same agency that publishes the big jobs report) since the end of the government shutdown. That's especially notable in this case because we won't ever get a full jobs report for October, and the portion that remains won't come out until the following week. Then on Wednesday, the The Fed will announce its rate decision. Markets are fairly convinced the Fed will cut rates, but the confidence isn't as iron-clad as normal. Additional surprises could arrive with the Fed's dot plot (updated rate forecasts from each Fed members) as well as Fed Chair Powell's press conference.  As always, keep in mind that a Fed rate cut has no bearing on longer-term rates like mortgages. It's actually been more common to see mortgage rates rise following Fed rate cuts.  

Today's mortgage rates a just a hair higher than yesterday's and although yesterday's rates were reasonably close to last Friday's, they were still definitely higher. That last assertion is at odds with some of the mortgage rate media coverage you may encounter today, but there's a logical reason. Freddie Mac releases its weekly mortgage rate survey every Thursday. It consists of an average of the rates from each of the previous 5 business days (Thursday through Wednesday). Thus, by the time it is reported, it is a fairly stale indication of rate movement if there's been any reasonable amount of volatility.  In the case of the current week, Monday and Tuesday saw rates move meaningfully higher from last week. Even after yesterday's recovery, the average lender is still slightly higher than any day last week apart from Monday.  As always, keep in mind that consistent daily coverage of mortgage rates mean that qualitative words like "higher and lower" may sound more serious than they are. For context, rates haven't drifted outside a 0.25% range for the past 3 months. Over the past 2 weeks, the range has been half that. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Mortgage rates improved more noticeably today, and while the average rate isn't quite as low as it was last week, it's fairly close.  Rates are based on movement in the bond market. Bonds were most likely to move in response to one or both of today's big economic reports.  Oddly enough, most of the bond market improvement was seen overnight, BEFORE the economic data came out. Nonetheless, the data definitely didn't hurt.

Unlike Monday, which saw a fairly brisk move toward higher rates, Tuesday barely budged. Additionally, the budging occurred in a friendly direction with the average lender offering rates that were just a hair lower than yesterday's.  Starting tomorrow morning, this week's potential volatility will be higher. Each day brings several economic reports  with the power to push rates higher or lower. Wednesday/tomorrow is probably chief among these due to the ADP employment report and a closely watched service sector report from ISM. 

Mortgage rates are based on bonds and the bond market is prone to erratic behavior on major holiday weeks. One of the more common patterns is for the holiday week to see a noticeable departure from a prevailing trend only to return to that trend in the following week.  That's exactly what we're seeing on the first day of the new week. The prevailing trend saw rates hold a narrow, sideways range with the average top tier 30yr fixed rate in the 6.3s.  Last week saw that average drop to 6.20% and now today, we're right back up to 6.31%. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] In the coming days, economic data should have a bigger impact on rates than the sort serendipity at work today.