The good news is that mortgage rates ended the day at their lowest levels of the week. That's welcome news after Monday's rates matched the highest seen since July 2025. Today's improvement came courtesy of weakness in the stock market, which is not necessarily a common or reliable source of inspiration for rates these days. But a majority of this week's drop is tied to back-to-back inflation reports coming in much lower than expected. 

The bad news goes back to the long-term highs seen on Monday. In a short-term context, we've definitely seen solid improvement since then. In the bigger picture, however, this week's lows are still pretty close to the longer-term highs.