NOW: The 30-year is 6.76%, four basis points below yesterday, eight above last week and twenty-three above a month ago. The driver is supply, or rather the absence of a supply problem. Treasury's quarterly refunding statement landed at 8:30 and held the refunding at $125 billion with the nominal coupon auction sizes unchanged — $58 billion in 3s, $42 billion in 10s, $25 billion in 30s. Dealers had been saying all week that Treasury would decline to signal any increase and push that conversation into early 2027, and that is precisely what happened. The long end had been carrying a small risk premium into the announcement; that premium came out. The 10-year is 4.70% on the latest read, five basis points below the prior print, and VIX has eased to 15.86. Fed funds is unchanged at 3.63%. Yesterday's Williams comment — a permanent voter naming a hike as still available — has not been walked back, so the front end keeps its hawkish tilt even as the long end relaxes.
NEXT: The board is nearly empty until Friday. Jobless claims and the Freddie Mac survey land Thursday the 6th; claims have crept up to 197,000 from 188,000, which is a drift rather than a signal. Nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate land Friday the 7th, and that is the entire week. Unemployment last printed 4.2%, down from 4.3% — a labor market that is not obviously cracking, which is exactly what makes a surprise in either direction expensive. CPI follows the week of the 10th. The next FOMC is September 15–16 and carries a Summary of Economic Projections, so Friday's number does double duty: it moves the tape this week and it feeds the dot plot the market will trade in six weeks. With supply now settled for the quarter, payrolls is the only remaining variable on this month's rate path.
RANGE: 6.76% sits six basis points under the 90-day high of 6.82% and twenty-two above the 30-day low of 6.54%. The 30-day average is 6.672% and the 90-day average is 6.595%, so today is above both — this is still the expensive end of the range, not a bargain. Rates have not been falling; they have ground modestly higher for a month and today gave four of that back. The 15-year at 6.11% and the 5/1 ARM at 6.31% both sit closer to the middle of their own 90-day bands than the 30-year does to its, which is the usual shape when the long end carries a term premium the shorter products do not. Government product is the widest gap on the sheet: FHA at 6.29% and VA at 6.31% are running roughly 45 basis points under the conventional 30-year.
DO: The focus today is the purchase file that qualifies both ways. On a $400K loan the conventional payment is about $2,597 a month; the FHA payment at 6.29% is about $2,473 before mortgage insurance — a $124 gap that survives the MIP on a meaningful share of files, and one that most borrowers never get shown because conventional was assumed at application. Pull the files where the borrower is under 700 or under 10% down and re-run both columns. On positioning, nothing about today changes the pre-payroll math: a four-basis-point improvement at the top of the range is not a reason to float into Friday. Do this today: re-price your active purchase files under both conventional and FHA, send the two-column comparison to any borrower where the gap clears $75 a month, and lock everything closing inside 30 days before Thursday's close.