First, the bad news: mortgage rates ended the day just a hair higher compared to Thursday, but the change was so small that many borrowers will see little--if any--difference in pricing. Now the good news: apart from yesterday afternoon, today's rates would still be the lowest in 4 weeks (i.e. you'd have to go back to July 17th to see anything lower). Lastly, some news that's neither good nor bad, but simply a bit confusing. Today's higher rates followed this morning's Retail Sales report which came in much weaker than expected. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that weaker data coincides with lower rates.  One issue is that Retail Sales is not in the same league as top tier economic reports like the inflation data seen earlier this week or the jobs report seen last Friday. Also, there can be more nuance to the retail sales data by the time traders consider temporary factors and timing. Lastly, sometimes the bonds market (bonds dictate rate movement) has simply done as well as it's going to do on any given week and it would take a much bigger surprise to overcome trading momentum that is happening for non-data-related reasons. In other words, traders can push back against the week's prevailing momentum on Friday simply as a byproduct of closing out the week's trading positions.  [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Mortgage rates dropped noticeably on Thursday on a combination of lower oil prices and a lower inflation reading via the Producer Price Index (PPI). Rates are driven by bonds and bonds are highly responsive to the outlook for inflation and the economy. The Iran war caused inflation implications to spike and the periodic relief in fuel prices has coincided with bond market improvement (and lower rates). The official inflation data is just another form of the same benefit. Fuel prices are just one aspect of inflation--albeit a critical one, but they're more of a leading indicator. In contrast, big government data like PPI and yesterday's CPI (Consumer Price Index) help the market more accurately measure the true impact of fuel prices. PPI was only slightly lower than expected, but that was enough to account for most of today's improvement in rates. Top tier 30yr fixed rates fell 0.05% to 6.69% for the average lender. That's the lowest reading since July 17th--just one day shy of 4 weeks ago. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Mortgage lenders set rates around 10am ET every day, but the bond market dictates the day to day changes, and bonds were on the move throughout the overnight trading hours. Granted, the movement wasn't extreme, but much like yesterday, it suggested a bit of optimism heading into this morning's main event: the release of July's Consumer Price Index (CPI).  CPI is one of the two big inflation reports on any given month (the other being PCE) and it has more potential to cause a reaction because it comes out 2 weeks before PCE. Given that last month's CPI showed a sharp drop in inflation and that July's fuel prices had bounced back up, the market was very focused on what the data would actually reflect. As it happened, forecasters nailed it. All the top-line numbers were right in line with consensus estimates. This is apparently the result that the bond market had been positioning for. There was no additional improvement in bonds after the data, but arguably a fair amount of improvement in anticipation of just such a result.  The net effect is that the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate returned precisely in line with the 3-week lows seen last Friday. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

It ended up being a remarkably uneventful day for mortgage rates. Some lenders were slightly higher than yesterday. Others were roughly unchanged. The difference came down to whether the lender in question raised rates yesterday afternoon. What does this mean? Lenders prefer to set rates once per day around 10am ET. But if the underlying bond market makes a big enough move, lenders can change rates during the day. Bonds lost just enough ground yesterday for some lenders to raise rates. Contrast that to today where virtually every lender maintained the same levels throughout. Tomorrow morning brings the latest release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is one of the most important pieces of monthly economic data as far as rates are concerned. There's no way to know how it will impact rates ahead of time--only that a large deviation from expectations is likely to result in a larger-than-average move higher or lower.

As of last Friday, average top-tier mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since July 20th. If they'd managed to drop even 0.01% today, it would have been a new 3-week low.  As it stands, rates moved modestly higher in response to higher oil prices. Throughout the Iran war, oil and rates have had a broadly strong correlation because oil informs inflation expectations and inflation is a key input for the rate market. Even after today's rise, rates remain much closer to the lower end of the range over the past 3 weeks. Logically, any positive developments in the war or diplomacy should result in lower rates. Beyond that, there's separate volatility potential related to inflation reports that come out later this week, but as always, that could be for better or worse depending on the outcome of the reports.