Mortgage rates moved slightly lower today, recovering some of Friday's losses.  Those losses introduced the risk that 2016's dominant trend toward lower rates could be in the early stages of turning a corner.  Today's improvements don't necessarily confirm or reject that possibility.  It continues to be the case that we may be waiting until Thursday before getting a clearer sense of any potential big-picture changes.    3.875% remains the most prevalently-quoted conventional 30yr fixed rate for top tier scenarios, but today's gains mean 3.75% is the next most prevalent rate instead of 4.0%.

Much like the rest of the year, today's market movements were mainly a factor of losses in oil and stock markets.  Mortgage rates don't always follow the prices of those riskier assets, but they certainly have been for the past 4 weeks.  Any major move higher or lower in oil/stock prices will likely be met with a similar move in mortgage rates.