Mortgage rates moved higher at a quicker pace today, following the release of the Minutes from the most recent Fed meeting.  But correlation isn't necessarily causality in this case.

The Minutes provide a more detailed account of the Fed meeting that resulted in September's rate hike.  That rate hike was foregone conclusion and the Fed has been a relative open book in the intervening 3 weeks.  In other words, there wasn't bound to be much by way of surprises.  Even so, investors are always looking for clues in this more robust snapshot of the Fed's decision-making process.  As such, it has the potential to cause some market volatility.

There was market volatility today--especially for bonds (which directly affect mortgage rates).  It's debatable whether it was purely a function of the Fed.  More likely than not, traders were predisposed to push rates higher for a variety of reasons and were simply waiting to make sure the Fed Minutes didn't offer any information that suggested a different strategy.  After all, if a certain calendar event has the potential to cause volatility, it makes sense to avoid overcommitting until you can be sure the volatility won't be working against you.

In the bigger picture, today's bond market losses (aka "rate increases") were only moderate.  Unfortunately, we were already fairly close to the long-term highs seen early last week.