Mortgage rates bounced higher today, after making it to the best levels in more than a week yesterday afternoon.  Markets responded to a strong home sales report and political headlines.  The net effect was upward pressure on stock prices and interest rates.  Much like yesterday, most of the movement in rates was seen in US Treasuries, but the average mortgage lender was not immune.  

The net effect is the highest 30yr fixed rates of the week, but that sounds a bit more ominous than it is.  The timing of yesterday's market movement worked in our favor as the average lender hadn't fully accounted for the improvement in bond markets by the end of the day (bond market improvement implies lower rates).  That left a bit of a cushion for today's rates.  In other words, they didn't have to move too much higher to get to the levels implied by the bond market.

The bigger concern is the road ahead.  Today's shift in the bond market was fairly abrupt.  It's the sort of shift that frequently implies traders are willing to keep pushing rates higher unless given a compelling reason to reconsider.  Such a reason would have to come from weak economic data or a political headlines with clear implications for economic negativity or uncertainty.