Big Bad Day For Bonds. What's Next?

Big Bad Day For Bonds. What's Next?

Bonds sold off early and aggressively on Monday in a move that most onlookers are quickly attributing to geopolitics. Specifically, the thought is that higher oil prices imply higher inflation and, thus, higher rates. While some traders probably woke up and decided to sell bonds based on this logic, they didn't account for the pace of the sell-off. Rather, it was a perfect storm of timing and technicals with Friday's month-end positioning leaving bonds overbought and well through the 4% technical floor. Today ran the risk of being a selling day anyway, but the obvious goal of re-entering the 4%+ range made it that much more swift. Closing out at 4.04% doesn't seem too bad in the bigger picture. It's a hard reset in the short term, but not necessarily a sign of additional momentum. For that, this week's econ data would need to gang up and send a bullish message for the economy.

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Big Bad Day For Bonds

MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.0 99.73 -0.43 10YR 4.098% +0.062% 3/3/2026 6:47AM EST
Selling has been steady, and there are no new market movers causing additional selling, but the gradual decline now brings 5.0 UMBS down an eighth of a point from AM highs. Those highs coincided with some lenders' rate sheet print times. Technically, this is the threshold scenario for negative reprice risk, but most lenders tend to price more conservatively on a day like today (which could limit some of the reprice risk we'd typically see in this situation).    READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed 6.12% +0.13% 15YR Fixed 5.68% +0.08% 3/2/2026
Mortgage rates began the new week with a fairly quick jump back into the low 6% range (top tier 30yr fixed rate for the average lender). With the news cycle very focused on developments in Iran, most coverage attempts to correlate geopolitical events with market movement. The only legitimate way to do this would be to say that upward pressure on oil prices is translating to higher inflation implications and therefore higher rates. At many times in the past, this would be a...   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Tuesday, Mar 03
9:55AM Fed Williams Speech
10:10AM Mar IBD economic optimism Mar 50.1 48.8
11:55AM Fed Kashkari Speech
Wednesday, Mar 04
7:00AM Feb/27 MBA Refi Index Feb/27 1432.9
7:00AM Feb/27 MBA Purchase Index Feb/27 149.7
7:00AM Feb/27 Mortgage Market Index Feb/27 340.2
8:15AM Feb ADP jobs (k) Feb 50K 22K
9:45AM Feb S&P Global Composite PMI Feb 52.3 53
9:45AM Feb S&P Global Services PMI Feb 52.3 52.7
10:00AM Feb ISM Services Employment Feb 50.3
10:00AM Feb ISM Biz Activity Feb 57.4
10:00AM Feb ISM Services Prices Feb 66.6
10:00AM Feb ISM Services New Orders Feb 53.1
10:00AM Feb ISM N-Mfg PMI Feb 53.5 53.8
10:30AM Feb/27 Crude Oil Inventory (ml) Feb/27 2.2M 15.989M
2:00PM Fed Beige Book
2:00PM Feb Total Vehicle Sales (ml) Feb 15.2M 14.9M
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Mortgage rates finished the week at their lowest levels since August 2022. In outright terms, this is far from the record lows, but rates set another kind of record. Volatility is a common negative side effect associated with rates hitting multi-year lows. For example, back on January 9th, the MND rate index briefly hit 5.99% before bouncing back to 6.06% later that same day, and 6.21... READ MORE