The 30-year broke its hold. Bankrate's conventional average printed 6.91% this morning, up seven basis points from the 6.84% it held Saturday, Sunday and Labor Day, and that is a fresh high for the series — above every print in the last 90 days. The driver is behind us rather than in front: August payrolls landed at +162,000 with unemployment unchanged at 4.1%, which is not a labor market asking the Fed for urgency, and the 10-year was 4.77% at its last published read on September 3. The rest of the move is positioning. Two inflation prints and a dot plot sit inside the next six business days, and the tape is pricing that in rather than waiting to be told.
The calendar is the whole story from here. August PPI lands Thursday, September 10 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and August CPI Friday, September 11 at the same hour — back-to-back inflation reads with no cushion between them. Jobless claims come Thursday morning as well, and Freddie's PMMS resets the same day. Then the FOMC meets Tuesday and Wednesday, September 15 and 16, with a Summary of Economic Projections attached; the statement lands 2:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday and the press conference follows at 2:30. A dot plot is the meeting that repositions the curve, not the one that confirms it. Nothing between now and Thursday morning is scheduled to move this market, which means the next real information arrives in about 48 hours.
On the range, there is no soft way to read today. 6.91% is the top of the 30-day window (6.67% to 6.91%) and the top of the 90-day window (6.47% to 6.91%) simultaneously. The 30-day average is 6.75% and the 90-day average 6.67%, so today sits 16 basis points above the month and 24 above the quarter. PMMS, which reads a week behind, had the 30-year at 6.71% as of September 3, up five basis points on that week. Rates are not stabilizing and they are not coming down; they have been grinding higher since late August and today is the highest print of the run.
Today's opportunity is not in the conventional book — it is in the jumbo one. Bankrate's jumbo 30-year came in at 6.85%, six basis points BELOW the conforming average, and that inversion is new: the jumbo premium has run a steady four to thirteen basis points ABOVE conforming every single day for the past three weeks. Conforming rose seven this morning while jumbo fell three, and the gap crossed. Treat it as one session, not a trend — this series is noisy and it can revert tomorrow — but a borrower sitting just over the conforming limit is being quoted better today than the borrower just under it, and that is not the assumption most pricing conversations start from. Gov-loan spreads held their usual shape: FHA at 6.49% and VA at 6.57% remain 42 and 34 basis points under conventional, and the 15-year at 6.31% keeps a 60-basis-point discount. Do this today: pull every in-flight file sized within roughly ten percent of your area's conforming limit and price it both ways before Thursday morning — the inversion is live now and PPI is the event most likely to close it.