Bonds Calmed Down After Early Weakness This week's relevant economic data is concentrated over the Tue-Thu time frame with Wednesday's CPI being the most obvious headliner. Today's session offered little by way of new information but nonetheless provided […]

Mortgage rates rose to the highest levels since May 2024 by the end of last week following a stronger reading on the jobs report. Technically, the same thing happened today, but only because rates inched just a bit higher from Friday's latest levels.  This time around, there wasn't any big-ticket […]

“An economics professor was walking with a student when the student looked down and said, ‘Look! A $50 bill!’ The professor explained, ‘That can’t be true. If it were a $50 bill someone would have already picked it up.’” Sometimes reality doesn’t match theory, nor does it match […]

After last Friday's jobs report, the evaporation of Fed rate cut probability has been a common refrain.  While it's true that there was an obvious shift in both long and short term rates, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the broader move that has transpired since early October. During […]

2024 has been one of those "it is what it is" sort of years for activity in the mortgage market.  There were signs of hope over the summer months as rates fell enough to make for a noticeable spike in refinance activity.  But with the rapid reversal starting in October, refi demand is right back […]

Mortgage rates were already at 6 month highs earlier this week so it didn't take much of a push to send them up to new 7 month highs today. The push in question came from today's hotly-anticipated jobs report. No other economic report has as much consistent potential to cause volatility for […]

Sizeable, Straightforward Selling Spree Today's jobs report was much stronger than expected and there were no compelling counterpoints to give traders any second thoughts.  As such, traders proceeded logically by dumping bonds.  Trading levels hit the 3pm […]

In Los Angeles County, with 4,058 square miles of land (more than Delaware and Rhode Island combined) at least ten people have died, and more than 10,000 structures have burned and hundreds of thousands of residents are under evacuation orders in what will be the costliest wildfire disaster in […]

The morning trading is as straightforward as it is unpleasant.  Nonfarm payrolls crushed expectations (256k vs 160k f'cast) and the unemployment rate also improved (4.1 vs 4.2). While the Fed may have downplayed the role of the labor market in guiding the rate outlook at the last meeting, the jobs […]

No Data, No Volatility Bonds were only open for half the day due to the national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter.  Overnight markets made for a slightly stronger start and those gains slowly eroded throughout the day.  MBS closed at perfectly unchanged […]