Mortgage Rates Flat Despite Busy News Week

Mortgage rates were flat over the last seven days, despite a healthy dose of news, economic data and central bank statements that prompted a whirlwind week in stock markets.

Pandemic-related uncertainty and muted inflation expectations have helped keep Treasury yields – which generally dictate mortgage rates – at very low levels and in a historically tight range for the last month, even as other financial markets have seen significant ups and downs. Unsurprisingly, mortgage rates have followed a similar pattern lately. Despite a couple of sharp moves due to the complicated implementation of the FHFA’s adverse market price adjustment on refinance loans, mortgage rates have been basically flat for the last few weeks. With the Fed likely to keep interest rates at zero and a steady pace of mortgage bond purchases, upward pressure on mortgage rates will be limited in the near future.

And absent any fundamental changes to the FHFA policy, or significant virus-related developments such as a treatment or a vaccine, mortgage rate movements figure to be modest in the coming weeks.

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