Mortgage rates finally fell today after remaining flat for the last 3 business days.  There are a few possible explanations for the friendly move, but the easiest to see and discuss is the weakness in the stock market. 

If you read my commentary somewhat regularly, you'll know that I'm no great fan of using the "stocks vs bonds" explanation for rate movement (bonds = rates), but in today's case, weakness in stocks was clearly correlated with strength in bonds (stronger bonds = lower rates).  Much of this weakness surrounded trade-related headlines, however, so it's just as fair to say that bonds were reacting to trade war news.

Either way, the lion's share of the reaction was reserved for mainstream bonds like US Treasuries.  MBS (the mortgage-backed-securities that underlie mortgage rates) didn't do as well by comparison.  As such, the improvements in mortgage rates are fairly minimal.  The average borrower will still be seeing the same NOTE rate as yesterday, just with slightly lower upfront costs (or a higher lender credit).