Origination volume at the San Diego-based company rose 57% to $24 billion in 2024.

Hsieh stepped down from a day-to-day operational role following a contentious proxy battle for board leadership in 2023 but remained a director.

The company first entered the Canadian market in 2020 through an investment in an Ontario-based brokerage, which later rebranded to Rocket Mortgage Canada.

For the four weeks ended March 2, pending sales were down 6.4% annually as prices continued to rise, pushing borrower monthly payments near their all-time high.

The nomination of Jonathan McKernan to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moves to the full Senate, where he’s likely to be confirmed along party lines.

Decent Recovery as Sentiment Swoons Ahead of Jobs Report

Bonds have made it to Friday’s jobs report without a meaningful extension of the corrective sell-off that began 2 days ago. That wasn’t a given in the middle of today’s trading session. Lutnick’s comments on tariff exemptions fueled a risk-on move (buy stocks, sell bonds) in the late AM hours, but it didn’t last long. Stocks reversed course in the PM hours and pulled bonds along for the ride.  MBS were unchanged to a hair stronger and 10yr yields were able to make it fairly close to unchanged by the 3pm close.

Econ Data / Events

Jobless Claims

221k vs 235k f’cast, 242k prev

Market Movement Recap

08:39 AM Losing some ground after Jobless Claims.  MBS back to unchanged on the day and 10yr up 1.1bps at 4.288

10:41 AM Losing more ground after Lutnick’s comments on USMCA tariff delays.  MBS down 5 ticks (.16) and 10yr up 6.1bps at 4.337

01:28 PM Bouncing back over the past 2 hours as stocks swoon again.  MBS down only 1 tick (.03) on the day at 10yr up 1.6bps at 4.293

03:24 PM fairly flat in the PM hours.  Stocks and bonds are moving together as Trump speaks.  MBS up 1 tick and 10yr yields only half a bp higher at 4.281

You may see conflicting news about mortgage rates today, depending on where you look. Weekly surveys, such as Freddie Mac’s, are showing a fairly big drop from last week. That was indeed the case over the 5 business days of the weekly survey, but that data is now quite stale.   More timely rate metrics show the average lender raising rates over the past 3 days. This is no surprise considering bond yields are higher over the same time frame (mortgage rates almost always move the same direction as bonds yields, specifically 5yr and 10yr Treasuries).  Rates have moved higher even as stocks continue lower–a good reminder for anyone who was counting on ongoing stock losses to keep fueling the rate rally. As we often discuss, The correlation between stocks and bonds/rates can come and go for a variety of reasons, but economic data almost always matters when it comes to rates.  With several recent reports painting a less dire economic picture, rates have taken the opportunity to pause the exuberant decline that started 3 weeks ago in earnest, but they’re still much lower than they have been for most of the year with the exception of the past several days. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Tomorrow’s jobs report is the most important economic data of the week in terms of potential rate volatility.

“I recently saw a woman at Walmart with March Madness teeth… She was down to the final four.” Risk-free, prepayment-free Treasury rates have approached, or gone below, four percent as the expectations have grown for a slowing U.S. economy (it doesn’t help the ag states that China has cut off buying our soybeans, for example) and therefore potential Fed cuts. Borrowers are certainly reacting to rates dropping, as capital markets staffs are dusting off their renegotiation policies and explaining early payoff penalties. According to Curinos’ new proprietary application index, refinances increased 36 percent week over week and increased 2 percent in February; the purchase index increased 19 percent week over week and decreased 6 percent for February as a whole. February 2025 funded mortgage volume increased 3 percent YoY and decreased 6 percent MoM. Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures. (Today’s podcast can be found here and sponsored by Floify. Floify is an easy-to-configure point-of-sale platform that allows each branch or loan officer to customize its look and feel to meet the needs of their lending team, homebuyers, and market. Hear an Interview with Marr Labs Dave Grannan on how AI is being used to enhance customer interactions in mortgage lending, as well as the evolving role of human loan officers alongside AI, the challenges and successes of implementing AI Voice Agents, and how quickly lenders can adopt this technology.)

There are a few moving pieces to the bond market narrative on Thursday.  The general backdrop consists of yield curve steepening (fancy words that mean 10yr yields are moving higher relative to 2yr yields, or that  2s are falling more than 10s). Steepening has been the norm since mid-2023, but February marked a correction to that trend.  March is getting it back on track, perhaps.
MBS are somewhat indifferent as they’re in sort of a middle ground between the long and short end of the duration spectrum. This made for a stronger start in MBS despite higher 10yr yields. After that, we’ve had two instance of selling pressure: one from jobless claims data and the other from a delay in tariff implementation. Prior to that, the often overlooked Challenger Job Cut Report fueled some bond buying as it jumped to the highest levels in more than a decade, not including covid lockdowns.

A coalition of national financial organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief for preemption after regulators filed one against it in a key servicing case.