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Scott Bessent is studiously trying to avoid the fate of the last Treasury secretary who picked a Fed chair for President Donald Trump and now finds himself banished from the inner circle. To escape Steven Mnuchin’s fate, Bessent — who begins interviewing candidates for the role this month — must balance Trump’s demands for a […]

It’s a well-known fact that the monthly jobs report is more capable of causing big reactions in rates than any other economic data. It happened last month in grand fashion, and it is happening again this morning.  Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), which is a count of new jobs created, came in at a mere 22k for

The jobs report is the most important scheduled event each month as far as interest rates are concerned. The last installment helped get the average 30yr fixed rate down from 6.75 to 6.50 because it came out much weaker than expected (in addition to revising the previous two months lower as well). The shift in

October 3rd is a date that has come up many times in the past month of mortgage rate coverage. That’s because there’s been a veritable chasm between the rates on that day and every other day since then. Why? October 4th’s jobs report caused an uncommonly large rate spike with the 30yr fixed average moving

Mortgage rates are based on bonds and bonds can do funny things on the first and last trading days of any given month. One of the most common “funny things” involves a decent amount of market movement for no apparent reason. In truth, there are always reasons, but on the first/last trading day of the

It was a very slow and steady week for mortgage rates. On all 5 days, the average top tier 30yr fixed rate moved by 0.02% or less.  This is a small enough change that the average borrower wouldn’t see any detectable difference in a loan quote from one day to the next. But due to

There is no singular, official primary source for mortgage rate levels. The going rate is whatever can be locked/closed at any given lender. As such, we rely on surveys and data aggregations in order to routinely monitor the probable going rate.  The longest-standing weekly survey from Freddie Mac was updated today and, while it showed

It continues to be the case that day-to-day changes in average mortgage rates are very small. Today was no exception in that regard. Nonetheless, today represents a technical “record low” for 2025 with average rates edging just slightly lower than those seen on August 22nd and 26th. Our index (which tracks top tier, conventional 30yr

Mortgage rates tend to move at least a little every day although they haven’t been moving too much in the bigger picture recently. The only truly memorable move int he past few months occurred after the August 1st jobs report. It resulted in a 2-day drop from 6.75% to 6.57%.  The next closest contender was

After last week’s Jackson Hole speech from Fed Chair Powell, rates fell to their lowest levels since October 3rd, 2024, narrowly surpassing the recent long-term low seen on August 13th. Powell tacitly suggested a stronger possibility of a September Fed rate cut due to growing concerns about the labor market. Now today, the market corrected