John Herndon - NMLS# 346112

05/23/2026

05/23/2026

Upcoming Business Closure on Monday, May 25, 2026.

05/13/2026

Inflation...

The bad news is consumer prices are up 3.8% year-on-year. Most of this is driven by the Iran war, and should dissipate when it ends. Even so, it's useful to compare where we were four years...

05/12/2026

Mortgage Rates Rising to Start New Week
By: Matthew Graham
Mon, May 11 2026

Last week was decidedly stronger for mortgage rates as they either held steady or moved lower on 5 out of 5 days. All told, it was a 0.14% drop from the previous week in terms of the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate.

The new week is starting out in opposite fashion with rates moving up 0.07% today alone. This follows news over the weekend that Trump rejected Iran's counterproposal to end the war. In general, the longer the war continues, the higher oil prices will remain.

Oil price don't dictate rates, but there's currently a lot of correlation due to inflation implications. Oil naturally impacts the cost to ship goods, so a rapid spike in oil prices increases inflation. Rates are based on bonds, and bonds hate inflation. In fact, inflation is technically a component of bond yields (aka "rates").

Despite the rocky start to the week, we're not necessarily destined to move in one direction or the other. Everything depends on progress toward peace, or lack thereof. To a lesser extent, this week's incoming economic data can also have an impact. Coincidentally, much of that data focuses on inflation for the month of April.

04/27/2026

Minimal Change Despite Lack of Progress in Peace Talks
-Matthew Franklin
Mortgage News Daily

The word of the day is "stalled." You can't get far reading top news stories over the weekend without seeing it in reference to the negotiations that looked at least somewhat possible on Friday afternoon. At that time, official word was that Witkoff/Kushner were heading to Pakistan on Saturday morning to meet with Iran's FM Araghchi, but the US contingent never made the trek. Now this morning there are additional reports that a resumption of military operations is being considered. One would think this would make for a big hit to financial markets, but oil prices and bond yields are only modestly higher. And stocks are actually in slightly stronger territory, once again pushing new all-time highs.

Happy Monday!!

03/23/2026

Big Early AM Rally Gets Bonds Back in The Green
By: Matthew Graham
Mortgage News Daily

Up until roughly 7am ET, it was a rough night for the bond market. 10yr yields had been selling off steadily throughout, hitting 4.443% by 6:45am. Then at 7:04am, newswires indicated "talks" between the US and Iran, and a 5 day ceasefire of sorts. Yields and oil plunged instantly. Stocks rallied. The 10yr dipped as low as 4.308% before bouncing. The bounce coincided with reports that there were no talks, but yet other newswires suggested those talks happened through intermediaries and not directly with Iran. Either way, the 5 day moratorium on US strikes in Iran is worth something to the market.

03/03/2026

Big Bad Day For Bonds. What's Next?
By: Matthew Graham
Mortgage News Daily Wire
Mon, Mar 2 2026, 3:41 PM

Bonds sold off early and aggressively on Monday in a move that most onlookers are quickly attributing to geopolitics. Specifically, the thought is that higher oil prices imply higher inflation and, thus, higher rates. While some traders probably woke up and decided to sell bonds based on this logic, they didn't account for the pace of the sell-off. Rather, it was a perfect storm of timing and technicals with Friday's month-end positioning leaving bonds overbought and well through the 4% technical floor. Today ran the risk of being a selling day anyway, but the obvious goal of re-entering the 4%+ range made it that much more swift. Closing out at 4.04% doesn't seem too bad in the bigger picture. It's a hard reset in the short term, but not necessarily a sign of additional momentum. For that, this week's econ data would need to gang up and send a bullish message for the economy.
Econ Data / Events
ISM Manufacturing Employment (Feb)
48.8 vs -- f'cast, 48.1 prev
ISM Manufacturing PMI (Feb)
52.4 vs 51.8 f'cast, 52.6 prev
ISM Mfg Prices Paid (Feb)
70.5 vs 59.5 f'cast, 59.0 prev

Market Movement Recap
09:08 AM
Mostly flat overnight with sharper selling starting at 7am. 10yr up 5.9bps at 4.009 and MBS down just over a quarter point.
10:04 AM
a bit more weakness after ISM data. MBS down 10 ticks (.31) and 10yr up 8.8bps at 4.036
11:40 AM
New lows with MBS down 3/8ths and 10yr up 10.3bps at 4.051
03:30 PM
MBS still down 3/8ths and 10yr up 9.9bps at 4.046

Stay the course. JH

02/12/2026

Modest Increase in Rates is a Win. Here's Why
By: Matthew Graham
Wed, Feb 11 2026, 2:26 PM

Mortgage rates moved 0.03% higher today. On almost any other day, this would be a bit of a bummer, but in today's case, it's a victory.

There was a ton of potential volatility in the underlying bond market heading into the day due to the scheduled release of the big monthly jobs report. In addition, rates had taken a bit of an anticipatory lead-off ahead of the data (or at least it looked that way).

The implication was that a strong jobs report would come as a surprise and require a rapid correction toward higher rates--possibly significantly higher.

Truth has been stranger than fiction. The job count crushed expectations and the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since September. These numbers should have caused more damage than they did (i.e. we would not have been surprised to see mortgage rates jump twice as fast as they did, at the very least).

What accounts for this welcome display of defiance? That's unclear. It's a phenomenon that's playing out in the broader bond market and not just in the world of mortgage-backed bonds. Either way, we'll take it!

Stay the course. Godspeed!

01/27/2026

Time to buy? Let's talk!

12/22/2025

So Blessed with my family and friends...