The Strait of Hormuz is open again, at least on paper. Iran’s foreign minister declared all commercial shipping lanes completely open on April 17, and oil markets responded immediately, with WTI crude falling roughly 12% on the session. Treasury yields eased, and mortgage rates, already at their lowest level in a month at 6.30%, have…

Mortgage rates have climbed to their highest levels since last July. The 30-year fixed is sitting at 6.64% as of March 27, up from roughly 6.22% just two weeks prior. The 10-year Treasury yield closed that same Friday at 4.44%, its highest print since summer 2025. Most of what you see will tell you mortgage…

The Fed’s BindAt its March 18 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to hold the federal funds rate at 3.5% to 3.75%, the second consecutive hold after three quarter-point cuts to close out 2025. The decision itself was never in question. What mattered was the language around it and what the updated Summary…

The mortgage market entered March with something it hadn’t seen in years: momentum. Rates had briefly touched 5.98% on February 26, the first sub-6% print since 2022. Purchase applications were running 12% above the prior year. The spring buying season was shaping up to matter. Then the bombs started falling, and the data that was…

Private credit is not something that is typically covered on this blog. The name says it all, it is private, opaque by design, and deliberately insulated from the kind of public market scrutiny that makes analysis possible. When large swaths of the data are inaccessible and valuations are self-reported, drawing firm conclusions is difficult. I…