Mortgage rates going up

[Fernando]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/economy/articles/war-middle-east-hiking-mortgage-155337262.html

How a war in the Middle East is hiking your mortgage rate in America​

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.43% last week. That’s more than 30 basis points higher than at the end of last month—and its highest level since October 2025, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. The 30-year mortgage rate sits at 6.4% as of Thursday.

“The threat of higher-for-longer oil prices continued to keep Treasury yields elevated, and mortgage rates finished last week higher,” Kan said in a statement. “Higher mortgage rates, coupled with affordability constraints and economic uncertainty, pushed some potential homebuyers to the sidelines.”

Since the 30-year mortgage rate is benchmarked to the rate of the 10-year Treasury note, mortgage rates rise when the 10-year Treasury note rises. The 10-year Treasury is up to 4.39%, up from about 3.96% from before the start of the war.

 

[Fernando]

Stock market bulls, don't forget this one: Oil price shocks usually lead to a recession

Why stock market bulls should respect oil price shocks.

www.yahoo.com

Stock market bulls, don't forget this one: Oil price shocks usually lead to a recession​

Every US recession, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic, was preceded by an oil price shock, BCA Research chief global strategist Peter Berezin said in a new note (see chart below).

"The current macro environment is a toxic brew of many of the same vulnerabilities that haunted the global economy in the lead-up to past recessions: Rising oil prices, an unsustainable tech capex boom, elevated equity valuations, excessively high homes prices, and brewing stresses in private credit and other parts of the financial system," Berezin wrote.

He added, "Stocks look increasingly oversold in the very near term but will still finish the year below current levels."

"There's nothing more instantaneous to a consumer than standing there holding down the gas nozzle and watching the numbers tick on the pump," he said. "And if they were paying $80 a week ago, and they're paying $85 this week, and they were paying $60 a month ago, they know that 'I lost $20 of disposable income in filling up this tank of gas,'" Cohn added.