Macro Market Round-up
It was another brutal week for mortgage rates, ending up at 6.90% on Friday after starting the week at 6.68%.
They popped again yesterday up to 7%.
Unlike most other heavy movement in rates, there was no specifically damaging new data that we can point to explain the rapid rise. Traders seem to be changing their opinions (and thus changing their bond positions) on the likely direction of the economy - this is election-related for sure, but there has also been an absence of bad economic news (which helps mortgage rates go lower) as of late.
It's been a rough October. We were at a low of 6.14% on Sept 12th. Just over a month later we're at 7%.
Still, at this time last year, we were nearly at 8%, so we do still have something to be grateful for despite being beat up pretty good recently.
Side note, I know there are a lot of articles out there talking about the average 30-year mortgage rate being closer to 6.5%, not 7%...
That data comes from Freddie Mac which is about 2 weeks behind reality when rates move fast like they have been. The Freddie average rate data also doesn't normalize their data to remove points/costs whereas the MortgageNewsDaily.com daily rate metric focuses on the par rate (no cost, no credit).
This is why I switched my focus to the MND daily rate a couple of years ago. I'd much rather be ahead of everyone else. I still track the Freddie data just to keep up with how they compare to each other.
Other Relevant Macro News
The Week Ahead
- It's a big week. We get a slew of job market news this week capped off with the VERY IMPORTANT monthly jobs report on Friday. We also get a new PCE inflation update (the Fed's preferred inflation measure) on Thursday. And we get our first estimate on total economic output (GDP) in Q3 on Wednesday. The fact that we are just 1 week away from another Fed meeting makes every new economic data point we get even more potentially dramatic for rates.
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