Mortgage rates continue the slow, bumpy process of healing from the rapid rise seen 2 weeks ago. Last week was a solid victory in that sense with rates moving steadily and meaningfully lower without any major rebounds. The present week started out on shakier footing as rates lurched higher on Monday. Fortunately, the sailing has been smoother since then. Today was actually the best day of the week so far for the underlying bond market. Most of the improvement happened in overseas trading overnight, but gains continued in the U.S.  The average top tier 30yr fixed rate fell 0.04% from yesterday. Based on the timing of the bond market gains, if nothing were to change overnight, the average lender would be able to move slightly lower again tomorrow.   NOTE: the preceding is not a prediction.  It's merely a comment on the fact that the bond market improved a bit more than the average mortgage rate would suggest.  There's never a guarantee that bonds will do any particular thing between now and the next time mortgage lenders are setting rates for the day.

Mortgage rates are an extension of the financial market, so it's no surprise that they've been more volatile than normal over the past few weeks as markets react to fiscal headlines. The latest dust-up involved Trump's criticism of Fed Chair Powell which resulted in higher rates over the weekend. Now today we've had several comments from Trump (starting yesterday evening) saying that he was never planning to fire Powell and just generally conveying a more measured tone. Financial markets responded favorably. Had this been the only news of the day, rates would have dropped almost an eighth of a point.  We can arrive at this conclusion due to trading levels in the bond market at the time.  But other news pushed back in the other direction. Specifically, a closely watched gauge of business activity showed the sharpest spike in prices in 13 months in the services sector and 29 months for the manufacturing sector. Higher inflation begets higher rates, all other things being equal. Many mortgage lenders were forced to raise rates during the day, ultimately resulting in today's average being only modestly lower than yesterday's.  

In not so many words, last week's thesis was that "no news was good news" for mortgage rates.  Specifically, an absence of major, unexpected developments on the topic of tariffs and trade helped the underlying bond market retrace some of the recent steps. Those steps resulted in the highest rates in several months and one of the biggest weekly rate spikes in years. The present week began with echoes of that unpleasantness. Headlines regarding Trump's comments about Fed Chair Powell rattled the market and sent rates lurching higher. Now, 24 hours later, an absence of any additional escalation has given way to calmer market movement and generally flat interest rates. In fact, it has been one of the very calmest days in recent memory for mortgage rates.  Not only is today's average effectively right in line with yesterday's latest levels. There hasn't even been any intraday changes among mortgage lenders. Specifically, mortgage lenders prefer to set rates once per day and only make adjustments if the bond market experiences sufficient volatility. Lately, that's been a rule rather than an exception. Today, however, we haven't seen enough bond market movement to prompt any intraday changes, thus leaving the top tier conventional 30yr fixed rate just under 7% for the average lender. 

Last week was a hopeful one for interest rates.  The average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate fell more than 0.20% from the previous week's highs as underlying markets took some solace in the absence of major trade war escalations. Despite the solid improvement, the outright level of rates remained elevated compared to most of the past 2 months. In addition, the risk of volatility could not (and cannot) be ruled out when the market is more willing to react to fiscal policy headlines than economic data. The latest headlines involve heavy criticism of Fed Chair Powell on the part of The President. Without any comment on whether that criticism is justified, we can still observe that markets find it unsettling. Traders are expressing that sentiment by pushing stocks lower and rates higher. Mortgage rates jumped fairly sharply today, with the average lender moving up from 6.87% to just under 7.00% for top tier 30yr fixed scenarios.

Mortgage rates managed to make a nice amount of progress this week after hitting the highest levels in roughly 2 months last Friday. The first 2 days of the week brought the most meaningful improvement and it's been slow going since then. In fact, today ended up going slowly in the other direction with the average lender moving slightly higher in rate compared to yesterday. The pace of movement is nothing like we saw last week, thankfully. The financial markets that underlie rates are definitely taking a breather after the extreme volatility last week, but until fiscal policies are firmly decided and on cruise control, it's a good idea to remain vigilant against heighted volatility.