Real Estate

Before this morning’s jobs report was released, mortgage rates were on track to end the week at their highest levels in several weeks. This was due to an ongoing mega-spike in oil prices spilling over to the bond market (higher oil = higher inflation implications, and bonds hate inflation). The jobs report saved the day, […]

It’s shaping up to be a frustrating day market watchers. Decades of experience tells us that bonds should rally fairly sharply on a day where nonfarm payrolls miss the forecast by the widest margin in more than a year.  At -92k vs +59k, today fits that bill.  And like you’d expect, bonds rallied sharply right

Officially winter ends on 3/19, as the Spring Equinox is 3/20. Most modern clocks these days auto-update when daylight savings begins/ends. So, Sunday morning I’ll be walking around my house thinking, “Wow… times have changed.” This Sunday many places will be changing their clocks and springing ahead. This will, once again, lead to the public

Dueling Narrative Leave Yields Higher Ahead of Jobs Report In the overnight session yields followed oil prices higher, but notably, Treasuries continued to sell even after oil leveled off. Then during domestic hours, it was Treasuries’ turn to level off while oil prices spiked.  From 9am to 2pm, oil rose nearly $5/bbl while Treasury yields

Mortgage rates bounced back up today as the underlying bond market continued the selling trend seen on 3 out of 4 days so far this week. In the overnight hours, bond yields (which generally correlate with mortgage rates) moved higher in concert with rising oil prices.  That said, it would be a mistake to assume

The bond market has already shown an indifference to this week’s econ data as a market mover (even though we expect that to change with tomorrow’s jobs report). This morning, however, the trend continues with stronger jobless claims and a big uptick in labor costs failing to inspire a reaction. But there has been movement.

Here in Park City, at the annual mortgage ski trip, some of the banter is social, and some is focused on business. On the business side of things, one topic is the nearly 1 million people impacted by hackers attacking Figure Technology Solutions, a blockchain-focused fintech lender. U.S. financial institutions are increasing cybersecurity vigilance amid

Economic data is one of the few consistent sources of motivation for interest rates in the mortgage world and beyond. In general, stronger data tends to push rates higher and vice versa. But in today’s case, that correlation didn’t pan out. The first of today’s two important economic reports was ADP Employment. It was just

After 2 days of much higher volatility at the open, bonds are roughly unchanged so far this morning and the overnight session was noticeably calmer. Today’s big ticket data includes ADP Employment and ISM Services. The former is already out (63k vs 50k, with a negative revision about the same size as the beat) and not

Credit is certainly a topic as of late, both its process and its cost, but I received this note from an industry vet in the South. “Rob, I’m tired of lenders having ‘a come apart’ over FICO’s costs. No one talks about the fact that FICO held its prices steady for over 20 years, and