The average mortgage lender remained right in line with yesterday’s levels despite a bit of weakness in the bond market.  Lenders who improved their rates yesterday afternoon were slightly higher.  Others were slightly lower.  This is a solid outcome considering the market motivations over the past 2 days.  Specifically, rates moved in concert with stocks yesterday as NVDA led a substantial sell-off.  Stocks bounced back today, and have now recovered most of the damage from yesterday morning.  Rates, meanwhile, haven’t followed the correction today. The 2nd half of the week bring a higher concentration of calendar events with the potential to influence rates. At 2pm ET, the Federal Reserve releases its latest rate announcement. There is effectively no chance of a rate change at this meeting, nor is it likely the Fed would change much about the statement itself. That leaves Powell’s 2:30pm press conference as the sole source of potential volatility in the afternoon. On that note, this is one of those Fed meetings where it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a minimal reaction even though one should never rule out a bigger reaction on a Fed day. 

Bonds were weaker overnight as markets calmed down a bit after yesterday’s DeepSeek frenzy.  The 8:20am CME open brought in just a bit of buying, but there’s been better selling since the 8:30am Durable Goods data.  The -2.2 vs 0.8 f’cast might look like a good outcome for bonds at first glance, but Durable Goods is a notoriously volatile report at the headline level due to major expenditures in certain sectors. That’s why there’s a separate component line item for “non-defense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft.”  Think of it like “core” durable goods.  Bottom line, the core is offsetting the headline, and causing bonds to move back to the weaker opening levels.

“Last year I joined a support group for procrastinators. We haven’t met yet.” Lenders and vendors are certainly meeting here in Austin. What’s going on out there? There’s endurance. Congratulations to my son Robbie as today is his 1,000th podcast, the link to which is posted at the bottom of every opening paragraph. (What have you done, workwise, 1,000 times?) There’s innovation. There’s Praxis Lending Solutions, newly launched, focused on workflow redesign, tech assessment, and customer experience. There’s education. On today’s episode of Mortgages With Millennials, Kristin Messerli and Robbie Chrisman welcome a couple of potential first time home buyers to ask them about their home search as it pertains to working with a lender and the customer experience. There’s customer service. Want to do a client with a high credit card balance (and paying 28 percent on it) a favor? Of course you want to put them into a cash out refi, but if that doesn’t work, for $1 have them join American Consumer Council which gives them access to membership in normally off-limit credit unions. Some, like UFCU in Austin, will accept transferred balances into an account where the rate can be only 9.9 percent. Hmmm… 9.9 versus 28. (Questions can be directed to UFCU’s Michael Jones.) (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Figure. 50 percent of the top IMB’s use them, and if you haven’t examined your HELOC/HELOAN strategy recently, it’s time to get on it. Hear an interview with Polunsky Beitel Green’s Peter Idziak on the various executive orders Trump has issued since he entered office and their potential impacts on the housing industry.)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s stock were downgraded to “underperform” by KBW as they are currently priced above its expectations.

Sales rates, as well as bid-to-ask spreads at foreclosure auctions both showed signs of increasing demand from November to December, according to research.

The market is watching to see how investors handle any market dislocations that arise as elected leaders look to reform the government-sponsored enterprises.

The final vote was 68-29 in favor of Senate the confirmation of the billionaire hedge fund manager.

The nation’s largest homeowners insurance providers imposed rate hikes in double-digit percentages last year, led by Farmers’ 53.5% increase in Maryland.

“Dr. Oz says rubbing coffee grounds on your naked body will get rid of cellulite. Apparently, you can’t do this in the downtown Austin Starbucks.” Here in Austin at the MBA’s IMB conference, some of the informal talk is about the reasons why U.S. home sales in 2024 fell to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. (No homes to buy? Are insurance and property taxes too high? Everyone who wants a house already has one?) Donald Trump has ordered “emergency relief” on housing affordability, and plans to attack regulatory costs: “Hardworking families today are overwhelmed by the cost of fuel, food, housing, automobiles, medical care, utilities, and insurance. Moreover, many Americans are unable to purchase homes due to historically high prices, in part due to regulatory requirements that alone account for 25 percent of the cost of constructing a new home according to recent analysis.” I am not sure how much of that 25% is addressable at the Federal level and how much is local building / environmental codes. That said, it is encouraging that the government is taking a look at the issue. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Figure. 50 percent of the top IMB’s use them, and if you haven’t examined your HELOC/HELOAN strategy recently, it’s time to get on it. Hear an interview with CoreLogic’s Greg Gallagher on the short and long-term implications of the Los Angeles fires in regard to affordability and insurance.) Broker and Lender Products, Programs, and Software

There are two distinct patterns of behavior when it comes to rates interacting with stocks.  The first could be called the “conventional wisdom” pattern, which holds that investors move money between stocks and bonds, thus creating a correlation between stock prices and rates (as investors buy more bonds, rates move lower). The second pattern is more commonly seen when there is some uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the Fed Funds Rate.  In this pattern, both stocks and bonds benefit from a friendlier Federal Reserve, thus creating an inverse relationship between stock prices and rates. Even though there is some uncertainty about the near-term Fed rate outlook and even though we have a Fed meeting coming up on Wednesday, today was all about conventional wisdom for interest rates.  Tech stocks plummeted on news of a cheap, competent, Chinese AI competitor. While many details are still likely to be revealed and understood, the market wasted no time in unwinding quite a bit of the bullishness previously baked in to NVDA, et. al.  Whether investors were simply looking for places to park the proceeds from that stock selling or legitimately betting on economic fallout, bond buying ramped up in a major way.  The average mortgage lender is now back in line with the lowest levels since late December, but just barely. Should you view this as a bigger picture turning point in the rate narrative? That would be premature. Today’s news was not economically negative, nor did it suggest a new rush of disinflationary momentum. Those are the sorts of things that would be needed to confirm a sea change for rates. As to whether this will result in another day or two of improvement regardless of big picture implications, that remains to be seen. History suggests there’s just as much of a chance of a rebound in the other direction tomorrow.