Stunning Resilience

Stunning Resilience

One could argue that our bar is set too low if we view today's bond market resilience as "stunning," but if that's not the right word, it's damn close. Last Thursday saw yields drop 8bps, largely due to a trio of labor market reports that are nowhere near as heavily traded as today's jobs report. Yesterday's Retail Sales helped yields slight significantly below the 4.20% technical barrier. And now today, an effective 0.2% lower unemployment rate (0.1% in the rate itself + 0.1% implied by the higher participation rate) and big beat in the payroll count are worth only a 3bp sell-off to 4.175%?  Yep, that's stunning.  But why did it happen? That's a question without a great answer today. We'll discuss possibilities in today's recap video.

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Stunning Resilience

MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.0 100.00 +0.02 10YR 4.177% +0.004% 2/12/2026 3:34AM EST
Nearly an hour after this morning's surprisingly strong jobs report, 10yr yields are only 4.4bps higher at 4.19%. On a normal day, 4.4bps might be a fairly big sell-off, but it's a huge victory on a day where payrolls came in at 130k vs 70k forecast, and where the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 vs 4.4 expectations. Moreover, labor force participation moved 0.1 higher, which means the unemployment downtick is an even stronger sign (all else equal, unemployment will rise 0.1 if ...   READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed 6.14% +0.03% 15YR Fixed 5.71% +0.01% 2/11/2026
Mortgage rates moved 0.03% higher today. On almost any other day, this would be a bit of a bummer, but in today's case, it's a victory. There was a ton of potential volatility in the underlying bond market heading into the day due to the scheduled release of the big monthly jobs report. In addition, rates had taken a bit of an anticipatory lead-off ahead of the data (or at least it looked that way). The implication was that a strong jobs report would come as a surprise a...   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Thursday, Feb 12
8:30AM Feb/07 Jobless Claims (k) Feb/07 222K 231K
8:30AM Jan/31 Continued Claims (k) Jan/31 1850K 1844K
10:00AM Jan Existing home sales (ml) Jan 4.15M 4.35M
10:00AM Jan Exist. home sales % chg (%) Jan 5.1%
1:00PM 30-Year Bond Auction 4.825%
1:00PM 30-Yr Bond Auction (bl) 25
7:05PM Fed Miran Speech
Friday, Feb 13
12:00AM Roll Date - UMBS 15YR, Ginnie Mae 15YR
8:30AM Jan m/m Headline CPI (%) Jan 0.3% 0.3%
8:30AM Jan m/m CORE CPI (%) Jan 0.3% 0.2%
8:30AM Jan y/y Headline CPI (%) Jan 2.5% 2.7%
8:30AM Jan y/y CORE CPI (%) Jan 2.5% 2.6%
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With the announcement that Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to be the new Fed Chair, there's a lot of misinformation and speculation making the rounds regarding the potential impact on mortgage rates. Let's clear it up. Who is Warsh and why do people think he could be good for rates? Frankly, it doesn't matter who Warsh is. Trump was only ever going to nominate a Fed Chair who was amenable to ... READ MORE