Mortgages are in the process of breaking below the 6.75 percent-6.875 percent range, as credit-panicked money has pulled the 10-year T-note below 5 percent for the first time in six weeks.

Given a choice between the economy-predictive powers of a frightened bond market and stocks in Dow-14,000 hysterics, pick bonds.  more...

On Friday, July 13th (of all days), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped a bomb on weak home and mortgage markets. The new damage will take time to quantify, but may be considerable. The tale behind the act is clear, and just shy of unbelievable.  more...

Mortgages are relatively steady in the 6.75-6.875 percent band, but they are the only semi-stable financial instrument out there. The money world is thrashing around, trying to identify the true extent of the housing/mortgage trouble.

June retail sales fell a surprise .9 percent -- maybe the often-forecasted, ultimate fade by consumers, maybe just a modest pullback from an outsize 1.5 percent gain in May.

Markets always oscillate across baseline, overdoing it one way, then another.  more...

Mortgages have been remarkably stable in the 6.75 percent-6.875 percent area while the all-powerful 10-year T-note has run in a much wider range: 10 days ago touching 5.32 percent, on Tuesday trading briefly at 4.99 percent, and today an early burst to 5.22 percent.

Two lessons here. First, inject volatility into a system, as did the 10-year's rocket in June from 4.6 percent to the levels above and you'll have high volatility for quite a while.  more...

The interest-rate rocket ride concluded at the middle of last week, the definitive 10-year T-note one night reaching 5.34 percent in Europe -- versus 4.6 percent one month ago. The mortgage rate apogee did not quite touch 7 percent.

The 10-year on Friday was trading a hair under 5.2 percent, and I think there are excellent reasons for faith in stability near here, low-fee mortgages about 6.75 percent.  more...

Four bad weeks in a row, this one the worst by far, yesterday the most abrupt bond-market move in two years. Mortgages are 6.75 percent, up a half-percent since May 14.

The 10-year Treasury: 4.6 percent in mid-May, 4.9 percent last week, 4.97 percent Wednesday, 5.13 percent Thursday, 5.24 percent in Europe last night, and semi-stable at 5.16 percent today.

Last time this high: summer '06 at the 5.25 percent conclusion of the Fed's two-year rate rise. Long-term rates quickly fell thereafter, all fall and winter looking for a housing or Fed-caused recession.  more...

After a pause early this week, long-term rates have resumed a quick run to the highest levels since last summer. Mortgages have departed 6.5 percent for higher ground, taken by the 10-year T-note almost reaching 5 percent at one point this morning, up from 4.6 percent trading only three weeks ago.  more...

Two weeks ago, the 10-year T-note traded under 4.65 percent; yesterday it touched 4.9 percent. Mortgages -- as always, following the 10-year in lockstep -- were trying to break 6.25 percent going down; now they are trying to hold 6.5 percent while going up.

The case for holding is poor.

Rates are rising because the global economy is taking off. Forget all the thoughts of drag from concerted tightening by central banks, Europe to top out, America to slide near recession on weak housing and manufacturing, Asian exports to be undercut by American weakness.  more...

Rates are up, decisively: mortgages are 6.375 percent, taken by the 10-year T-note blowout from five weeks in the four-sixties to 4.77 percent, very much at risk for further increases.

The end of the standoff between the recession-coming and all-OK camps was a three-act play, beginning with an exchange between former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and Bill Gross, PIMCO's bond impresario.  more...

Long-term rates are finishing their fourth-straight week in the same place: the 10-year T-note in the 4.6s, mortgages 6.25-6.375 percent. This trading band is too tight to last much longer, and at week end the majority opinion has shifted (again) to favoring a modest drop out of the bottom of the range.

The current economic circumstance is as weird and out of historical pattern as the semi-recession 2001-2003. Global integration has made obsolete most of the business-cycle instincts useful since WWII; the business cycle lives, but it's not your Dad's.  more...

March payrolls posted the weakest monthly gain in two years, net of prior-month revision only 62,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent.  more...

The slow drift downward in long-term rates stopped this week, the 10-year T-note at 4.69 percent, mortgages settling just above 6.25 percent.

Once again, good economic news dampened recession hopes in the bond market: orders for durable goods were very strong in March, up 3.4 percent, double the forecast, and February's orders were revised up half-again the initial report. Orders for durable goods trend along with capital spending by business, and weak business spending during the winter was thought to prove economic weakness spreading from housing and autos. But, not yet.  more...

The 10-year T-note improved this week, back down from the spooky-healthy job-market surprise two weeks ago, mortgages about 6.25 percent. However, the 10-year is now smack in the middle of a three-week trading range with no reason to move until the economy declares itself in new data.

We'll get housing news next week, and then nothing until the first week of May. I think the data suggests a steadily weakening economy, but that general perception is built into today's rates.  more...