Decent Gains Remain Intact; Stock Market Contribution is a Wild Card

Decent Gains Remain Intact; Stock Market Contribution is a Wild Card

The rescheduled release of the September jobs report played out exactly as we expected in terms of bond market impact. Volumes surged to the highest levels since the late October Fed announcement and bonds managed a clear response in spite of arguably mixed results. That said, the response was still logical given the Fed's stated preference for the unemployment rate over the payroll count.  One could imagine an even more decisive rally if NFP was low or negative (or if the unemployment rate was another 0.1% higher). The AM rally may have fizzled out by 10:30am if not for another sizeable sell-off in stocks. This is a bit of a wild card going forward (i.e. we have to worry that a big correction in stocks could push yields higher).

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Bonds Hold Decent Gains, But With How Much Help From Stocks?

MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.0 99.50 +0.17 10YR 4.046% -0.038% 11/21/2025 7:34AM EST
It's shaping up to be a "no whammies" sort of morning for the bond market.  There's no denying that the jobs report was a highly tradeable event. The 30 minutes of volume following the release was by far the highest since the October 29th Fed announcement. But that volume has been fairly well balanced between buyers and sellers.  Credit the uptick to 4.4% in the unemployment rate for offsetting the job count coming in at 119k vs 50k f'cast.  The downward r...   READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed 6.36% +0.00% 15YR Fixed 5.85% +0.00% 11/20/2025
Yesterday, we discussed the fact that mortgage rates were heading into Thursday with a disadvantage (for most lenders, anyway). This had to do with the fact that lenders prefer to avoid changing rates in the middle of the day (unless bond market movement is big enough to force their hands) and the fact that bonds had weakened just enough for lenders to begin considering changing rates by the end of the day. In other words, lenders either had to increase rates yesterday af...   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Friday, Nov 21
7:30AM Fed Williams Speech
8:30AM Fed Barr Speech
8:45AM Fed Jefferson Speech
9:00AM Fed Logan Speech
9:45AM Nov S&P Global Composite PMI Nov 54.5 54.6
9:45AM Nov S&P Global Manuf. PMI Nov 52 52.5
9:45AM Nov S&P Global Services PMI Nov 54.6 54.8
10:00AM Aug Wholesale inventories (o (%) Aug -0.2% 0%
10:00AM Nov Sentiment: 5y Inflation (%) Nov 3.6% 3.9%
10:00AM Nov U Mich conditions Nov 52.3 58.6
10:00AM Nov Consumer Sentiment (ip) Nov 50.5 53.6
10:00AM Nov Sentiment: 1y Inflation (%) Nov 4.7% 4.6%
Monday, Nov 24
1:00PM 2-Yr Note Auction (bl) 69
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After the longest shutdown in history the U.S. government reopened on Thursday. As expected, this has added a bit of upward pressure for rates. Because the prevailing rate range is very narrow, this leaves average 30yr fixed rates in line with their highest levels in more than 2 months. Why would the reopening push rates higher? Rates tend to move higher when the economy is doing well and ... READ MORE