Bankrate's 30-year fixed reads 7.23% this morning, 3 bps under the 7.26% in yesterday's pulse and the low of its 30-day window. The 10-year Treasury is trading near 4.93%, a touch under Tuesday's 4.95% close and 12 bps below last Wednesday's 5.05%. Treasury's quarterly refunding, today's scheduled event, came in without a surprise: $125 billion in 3-, 10- and 30-year securities, with Treasury saying it expects to keep coupon auction sizes unchanged for the next several quarters. Tuesday's session was a wash; Mortgage News Daily's Matthew Graham says an early lift from lower oil faded after a stronger JOLTS job-openings report.
NEXT is where the week's risk sits. Weekly jobless claims and the next Freddie PMMS land Thursday, November 5; PMMS last printed 7.24% on Oct. 29. The October jobs report and unemployment rate arrive Friday, November 6, after September showed payrolls up 29,000 and unemployment at 4.2%. Then the supply from today's refunding: the 3-year auctions Monday, Nov. 9, and the 10-year (Tuesday, Nov. 10) and 30-year (Thursday, Nov. 12) both land inside the November 10–15 CPI window that follows September's 3.7% year-over-year reading. The next FOMC meeting is December 8–9 and carries a dot plot; HousingWire reports CME FedWatch pricing 77% odds of a 25-bps hike there, after the September hike to 3.75%–4.00%.
RANGE, through the government-loan lens: Bankrate's FHA 30-year reads 7.06% and its VA 30-year 7.01%, against 7.23% for conventional. Since those two series resumed in mid-August, FHA has run from 6.32% to 7.24% and VA from 6.34% to 7.28%, so FHA sits 18 bps under its Oct. 19 high and VA 27 bps under its Oct. 11 high. For the 30-year conventional, the 90-day range is 6.67% to 7.57%: today is 34 bps off the Oct. 12 high and 56 bps above the Aug. 19 low, still in the upper half of the band.
DO: the government-loan pipeline is today's focus. FHA and VA borrowers who were quoted near the mid-October highs and stepped back are looking at a lower payment now, and they face the same jobs-report risk Friday as everyone else. On a $400K FHA loan, principal and interest at 7.06% is about $49 a month less than at the 7.24% FHA high. Do this today: pull every FHA and VA borrower you quoted between Oct. 10 and Oct. 20 who did not lock, rerun their payment at today's rate, and send it before Thursday's claims number.