Mortgage rates

Executives speak on the uncertainty created by the Russia-Ukraine war and Federal Reserve announcements.

The surging volatility in the world’s biggest bond market is challenging traders trying to play both tighter global monetary policy and a war-induced commodity price shock that’s raising the specter of 1970s-style stagflation.

In addition to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, persistent inflationary pressures and expected monetary policy moves are contributing to volatility.

A quarter-percent increase would eliminate more than a million buyers for median-priced homes according to the National Association of Home Builders.

After a tumultuous week of big yield swings and heightened volatility in the U.S. Treasury market, investors are bracing for another hot inflation report, while the war in Ukraine increasingly casts a pall over Europe and the global economy.

The Ukraine-Russia conflict has caused volatility in mortgage rates and that is likely to attract more buyers into a tight housing market, the analysis found.

The effect of the conflict and upcoming Fed announcements have left much of the industry guessing about what happens next.

The Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank expects to raise interest rates later this month to tackle hot inflation amid a tight labor market while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added uncertainty.

Optimal Blue researchers found correlations of 75% or more when looking at numbers of different loan-size cohorts, but the percentages came in lower when state data was analyzed.

Strong economic data was countered by international political developments, sending the 30-year rate lower for the first time in a month.