, Columnist
Don’t Expect Mortgage Rates to Drop Much Further
Home loans won’t be able to continue to follow Treasury yields lower given the economic outlook.
How low can they go?
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
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On March 17, bond markets were freaking out. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield had soared 38 basis points, entirely reversing the stunning 34-basis-point drop from the previous day. High-yield credit spreads had just surpassed their early 2016 peak to reach the widest in nearly a decade. Fixed-income exchange-traded funds were in an “illiquidity doom loop.”
Some 1,600 miles away from Wall Street, a friend of mine in Houston was perplexed, too.