Mortgage Rates Mostly Sideways After Dodging Mid-Day Drama

This morning brought another inflation report. Given the negative reaction to yesterday’s inflation data, there was some cause for concern. Thankfully, today’s data was more unequivocally acceptable for the bond market and–thus–interest rates. Bonds improved fairly well into the late AM hours, but then, the drama!

Actually, there wasn’t much drama for mortgage rates, but behind the scenes, lenders came very close to making mid-day adjustments toward higher rates.  Some of them actually did, but most of those lenders later reversed course after the drama faded.

So what was it? In a nutshell, Trump discussed firing Fed Chair Powell with some other lawmakers.  Word got out. Markets reacted. 

Folks who follow this kind of stuff closely were not surprised to see that…