Long-term mortgage rates are beginning to trickle back down from the peculiar spike of the last two weeks. The lowest-fee mortgages went from 6.375 percent to 6.25 percent; the 10-year T-note went from 3.9 percent to 3.8 percent -- the immense spread is a measure of deepening crunch.  more...

At the worst of Thursday, the lowest-fee, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages touched 6.25 percent (yes, that's a "six").

The jump is a technical affair likely to reverse, and certainly not a sign of economic recovery. Long-term rates had been in the same place for four weeks, with the bond market running out of buyers at near-record lows and overdue for counter-move.  more...

Mortgages struggled to stay as low as 5.75 percent (more below on the stubborn refusal of mortgages to follow the Fed down).  more...

Contrary to the conviction of deeply confused civilians and reports by lazy news media, mortgage rates are unchanged, about 5.75 percent for the lowest-fee 30-year paper.  more...

Wow. The basics: mortgages were at 5.75 percent last week, Monday a holiday, Tuesday markets stunned by the Fed's 0.75 percent cut; mortgages early Wednesday morning fell to 5.375 percent(!), wholesale rate-locking Web sites crashed in an hour, mortgages back up to 6 percent(!!) by Thursday noon. Citibank wholesale raised its rates nine separate times in 24 hours.

Summary: The economy -- including housing -- is probably better than feared, and we'll all be OK. However, this was the worst week for economic public policy in my memory. We'll survive it, too.  more...

Markets have entered a panicky freefall, the common precursor to at least a temporary rebound. Mortgages reached 5.75 percent, approaching the 5.25 percent all-time lows of '02-'04 from which rates vee'd up every time. Of course rates could go lower, even set a new record, but this is a bird-in-hand moment for refinancing.  more...

Long-term rates are unchanged this week, about the only things in finance that are. The 10-year T-note is still in the 3.80s, mortgages 6 percent, 5.875 percent, 6 percent. …

Two big speeches (Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke) and the demise of Countrywide overshadowed news of a steadily weakening economy and credit trouble spreading outward from mortgages.  more...

Long-term rates have fallen to the mid-December lows, and show almost every sign of going lower. The 10-year Treasury has reached 3.83 percent, and the lowest-fee mortgages are 5.875 percent.  more...

An inflation-inspired popup in rates is reversing on news of a weakening economy. Mortgages are still above 6 percent (they touched 6.25 percent at Christmas Eve worst), and markets will now hold until the release of all-powerful payroll numbers on Friday, Jan. 4.  more...

In thin holiday markets, The Crunch hasn't stolen Christmas, just given a mixed blessing: Mortgages fell from 6.25 percent to 6 percent in one week as fear of credit default returned and money raced to quality for safety.  more...

In as strange a stew of news as you'll ever see, mortgage rates have risen close to 6.25 percent, led by the 10-year T-note's leap from 3.85 percent to 4.25 percent.

Beginning two weeks ago, the financial markets began to trade on the prospects for government bailout of a fibrillating financial system. Then, yesterday, new economic data whiplashed them from preoccupation with financial failure to worry about inflation.  more...

Long-term mortgage rates are back above 6 percent this morning (despite Freddie Mac's "Fell Below 6 Percent" headline in today's papers, the result of an early-week survey), and the definitive 10-year T-note is now 4.12 percent, a long way from the 3.85 percent bottom in the last two weeks.

A 94,000-jobs gain in November payrolls reported this morning didn't help -- the bond market was hoping ghoulishly for an off-the-table figure -- but the real damage was done yesterday by the subprime workout plan.  more...

In one of life's larger mixed blessings, a return of financial panic is pushing mortgage rates lower. The approach to 6 percent is taking longer than I thought, but the week's events make crossover to the fives more likely than ever.

Signs of slowdown are accumulating: Retail sales in October rose a meager 0.2 percent; new claims for unemployment insurance are now rising (slowly, but rising), and October industrial production slipped by 0.5 percent.  more...

Despite a continuing decline in the 10-year T-note to the 4.2s, mortgage rates are stuck near 6.25 percent. That extraordinary spread is due in part to the poisonous status of mortgages; the rest is an aspect of leadership failure in this credit crisis.

In times of plague, wagons and carts each day clattered through cities and towns, the draymen calling, "Bring out your dead!" So it is on Wall Street today. You would think by now that surprise would have faded at the number and identity of new shrouds, contagion perfectly obvious.  more...