• Wednesday’s mortgage rates should be lower by approximately .250 - .375 of a discount point. The bond market is currently up 15/32 (4.64%).

 • Stocks are mixed with the Dow up 263 points and the Nasdaq down 62 points.

 • We don’t have any relevant economic data to be concerned about today, but there are a couple of afternoon events that we will be watching.

 • This morning’s bond rally is being fueled by an unexpected announcement from Treasury Secretary Bessent that the Treasury Department was going to double the size of their buybacks of long-term Treasury securities. They are trying to improve liquidity in the bond market in an effort to reduce yields.

 • The funds being used for the buyback will come from currently scheduled auctions, meaning they aren’t reducing the amount of debt the U.S. owes.

 • Also, while the move obviously helped this morning, raising buybacks from $2 billion to $4 billion in a Treasury market of approximately $31 trillion isn’t going to do much good over the long term. In other words, don’t look for this to be a catalyst to start a downward trend in mortgage rates.

 • This morning’s other news was an announcement from President Trump that he was pausing the 50% tariffs on many Canadian goods because a deal with Canada is close to being reached. The positive reaction to his words is just a small part of this morning’s rally but it does go to the lower tariffs mean lower inflationary pressures.

 • First up for the scheduled events is the 1:00 PM ET results announcement of today’s 20-year Treasury Bond auction. This is another sale that will give us an idea of investor appetite for long-term securities. Good news for mortgage rates would be a strong investor demand since they are based on long-term debt.

 • The second event is the 2:00 PM ET release of the minutes from last month's FOMC meeting. The key points traders are looking for are discussions amongst Fed members about inflation, the future of the employment sector, and how the Iran war may affect the Fed's plans for key short-term interest rates.

 • The markets are currently predicting the Fed will raise short-term rates sometime this year to help push inflation lower as it remains stubbornly above the Fed’s goal rate of 2.00%. If the minutes indicate that rate hike may be coming sooner than later, we may see a negative reaction in bonds that leads to an upward move in mortgage rates before the end of the day.

 • Tomorrow brings us two moderately influential economic releases, starting with last week’s unemployment figures at 8:30 AM ET. They are expected to show 210,000 new claims for jobless benefits were made during the week, up from the previous week’s 209,000. Rising claims are a sign of weakness in the employment sector, so the larger the number the better the news for tomorrow’s mortgage rates.

 • The week's final release is July's Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) at 10:00 AM ET tomorrow. This Conference Board index attempts to predict future economic activity. A larger decline would be favorable news for mortgage pricing because bonds are more appealing to investors during weaker economic activity.

 • Visit our Daily Commentary page on our site for detailed explanations on current news that is relevant to mortgage rates.

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If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Lock if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days... Lock if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.