Mortgage Rates Erase Some of Last Week's Huge Improvement

In and of itself, today would rank among the handful of "worst days" of any given year in term of mortgage rate movement.  In other words, comparing today's rates to Friday's shows a big jump relative to the average day.  Specifically, most lenders are offering rates that are at least an eighth of a percent (.125%) higher versus Friday morning.

All that having been said, this is a prime opportunity to "put things in perspective."  Here's how the rate index chart looks after today's "big" losses.

In other words, the bond market retains much of what it gained last week.  These sorts of corrections are common in situations like this.  They don't tell us much about the future.  If anything, it's more of a confirmation that last week's drop was as big and impressive as it seemed at the time.

In the coming days, we'll see whether this is the start of a deeper give-back or just a token bounce after a huge move.  The US Treasury auction cycle is one of the only sources of guidance on the calendar when it comes to rate momentum this week.  Auction results are announced at 1pm ET on each of the next 3 days and that could lead to more volatile bond trading shortly thereafter (volatile bond trading, in turn, leads to changes in mortgage rate offerings--sometimes even in the middle of the day).