Mortgage rates haven't necessarily moved higher every day recently.  For instance, yesterday's rates were unchanged versus last Friday's.  But the general trend has unquestionably been toward higher rates.  In fact, rates have only moved lower on 3 out of the past 15 business days.  

While that sort of losing streak sounds fairly unpleasant, the size of the movement has been far from threatening.  Over that same 15 business day time frame, the average effective rate has only moved up 0.11%.  

Translated to actual "note rates" (the rate applied to your loan balance, without adjusting for upfront finance charges), we're talking about top tier borrowers moving up from 4.0% to 4.125% on average.  Some of the more aggressive lenders continue to quote 4.0% while a few of the less aggressive lenders have moved up to 4.25% from 4.125%.

To repeat yesterday's assessment of lock/float risks: we'd like to see a departure from the aforementioned trend before anything other than a conservative, lock-biased approach makes sense.