Weekly Mortgage Rates

April 29, 2025

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Last week words were hurting markets. After some serious pain was felt from words (stocks down/rates up). The tone changed some as comments about firing Powell were walked back and at the same time, trade war escalations were toned down.

This week begins more positively with rumors that we are close to some trade deals, carve outs for industries such as auto makers just announced, and less animosity directed towards the Fed. All this has led to less volatility in rates. We have seen a steady move down in mortgage rates since last week’s update. 

Tariffs Trump Economic News

There will be a lot of economic news released this week. This morning JOLTS showed 300k less job openings than last month. Tomorrow, 1^st quarter GDP is expected to show negative growth for the quarter and the key inflation measure PCE is expected to show inflation has slowed. Then on Friday we get the April job numbers. 

The expectations of slower growth and lower inflation normally would help rates improve, and we may get some benefit here from it. But markets are also considering the broad changes still ahead and the uncertainty around that is overshadowing the data that is still from the pre-tariff economy.

Lower rates ahead? 

On the technical side, we have trended back to our 200-day moving average for rates, a strong support level.

Some things on the horizon are the Treasury Secretary Bessent’s plans to deregulate banks allowing them to hold more treasuries, this would ultimately help rates improve. We will keep an eye on how this develops.

As progress on trade negotiations happens, we will most likely also benefit from a relief rally and some improvement in rates. Of course that can all change with a word.