Mortgage Rates

Mortgage Rates Bounce Modestly Higher Mortgage rates bounced slightly higher today, bringing them almost perfectly back in line with Friday's levels. Trading conditions in the underlying 'mortgage-backed-securities' and US Treasuries markets were underwhelming at best. Just as there hasn't been much by way of conviction as rates have been falling, today's bounce higher was similarly incidental. The day to day movements in rate continue to be much smaller than recent averages (or perhaps it's better to say they've been more "normal" whereas recent averages have been extreme from May through early July). Whatever the case, prevailing rate quotes remain in the same situation as yesterday where the average may be 4.375, but the adjacent rates of 4.5 and 4.25 will make more sense in terms of best-execution. So far, this week has adhered to the notion that markets will be far more interested in next week's events. Today was one of the two more likely days to be slow and uneventful. Although tomorrow offers slightly more in terms of market moving potential, we could be waiting until Thursday or Friday to see what the ultimate impact will be. As I noted last week, the recent run of good luck for rates looked more like a 'leveling off' process than the creation of new momentum toward lower levels. That makes yesterday's lows like the floor marking the bottom of that process. If we remain above it tomorrow, it's that much more likely to remain solid until next week's heavier events have a chance to break it. To be perfectly clear though, those heavy events can also reinforce the floor (there's nothing to know about them ahead of time beyond the fact that they have lots of potential energy).