Travis Hill’s nomination to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was recommended favorably by the Senate Banking Committee to the full Senate Wednesday morning in a 13-11 party-line vote.

Federal Reserve Gov. Stephen Miran argues that banks holding excess reserves are keeping the central bank’s balance sheet bigger than it should be, and suggested that regulatory changes could help bring those reserves down.

Rocket enters the crowded DSCR market with a product for experienced investors, joining rivals as non-QM lending grows and demand for single-family rentals stays strong.

Equities move through a stack of intermediaries, from custodians and clearing firms to brokers. Figure’s blockchain structure aims to cut out third parties.

Consecutive weeks of mortgage rate increases resulted in a 5.2% decrease in mortgage loan application volume, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

As I type these words, I am sitting in front of one of Chuck Berry’s early residences in St. Louis. STL has a good musical reputation, a fine mortgage association, a Fed that puts out great research, and has many nice neighborhoods. But to call this specific area where I am sitting a “transitional” neighborhood would be generous. Although there is potential, nearly every house standing could use an immense amount of work, and the residents probably aren’t regulars at home improvement stores. In fact, across the nation people aren’t rushing off to specifically Home Depot, either because of consumers slowing down or because people are boycotting it and view it as a “threat to democracy.” Strange times. Indeed, HD missed earnings estimates and took down its forecast for the fourth quarter, either because of consumer uncertainty or because consumers are going elsewhere. In other trends, how’s your companies loan products for cities? A new study shows that 80 percent of the world’s population now lives in urban areas, like St. Louis and Kansas City. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are sponsored by Figure. Figure is shaking up the lending world with their five-day HELOC, offering borrower approvals in as little as five minutes and funding in five days. And, embedding their technology is easy. Hear an interview with HomeLight’s Nick Friedman on lender sentiment heading into 2026, with optimism rising and new buyer behaviors taking shape that could reshape the housing market.)

It was a complicated day for mortgage rates.  Officially, at the time of this article, the average top tier 30yr fixed rate is a hair lower than it was yesterday.  But rates are based on bonds and bonds are telling a different story. In the wake of the release of the minutes from the most recent Fed meeting, bonds lost ground. This implies higher rates. The only reason it hasn’t resulted in higher rates today is timing. Specifically, the bond market losses just happened and most lenders have not yet made any adjustments. The implication is that tomorrow morning’s rates would be higher than they are today assuming bonds don’t change between now and then. An additional layer of complication is that we’ll receive the September jobs report at 8:30am ET tomorrow.  Because most mortgage lenders publish their rates between 9:30and 10:30am ET, this means there will be another source of probably volatility to digest before rates come out. Bottom line: if tomorrow morning’s jobs data is much stronger than expected, rates would be quite a bit higher.  But if the jobs report is weaker, it could offset the bond market losses seen this afternoon, thus keeping rates relatively unchanged.

Fed Minutes Push Yields Higher

As expected, the recent raft of hawkish Fed speakers foreshadowed (whether intentionally or coincidentally) a hawkish message in today’s Fed minutes. At issue: “many” meeting participants felt that a December cut would NOT likely be justified as opposed to “several” who disagreed. This was compounded by the fact that BLS rescheduled the early December jobs report for 12/16/25–6 days after the December Fed meeting. In other words, there won’t be any employment data that would help the Fed justify a cut next month. Fed Funds futures agreed with a spike in implied yields immediately following the BLS news. Longer-term bonds followed suit after the Fed Minutes. 

Econ Data / Events

ADP Weekly Payrolls 

-2.5k vs -11.25k prev

Jobless Claims (October 18th)

232k vs 223k f’cast, 219k prev

Factory Orders

1.4 vs 1.4 f’cast, -1.3 prev

Builder Confidence

38 vs 37 f’cast, 37 prev

Core Durable Goods (Aug)

0.4 vs 0.6 f’cast/prev

Market Movement Recap

10:02 AM Slightly stronger overnight, but losing ground since 9:30am NYSE open.  MBS unchanged and 10yr up 1.1bps at 4.12

11:01 AM Bouncing back from AM weakness.  MBS up 1 tick and 10yr up 0.9bps at 4.118

02:13 PM no reaction to Fed Minutes. MBS unchanged and 10yr down 0.4bps at 4.106

02:43 PM Weakest levels of the day for MBS, down 2 ticks (.06).  10yr up 1.3bps at 4.123

04:18 PM Heading out near weakest levels. MBS down 3 ticks (.09) and 10yr up 1.9bps at 4.128

Correlation between stocks and bonds is hit and miss depending on other factors. Before the age of more aggressive Fed intervention, it was more common to see yields move in concert with stocks. These days, Fed accommodation expectations can result in the opposite correlation.  That said, there are still times when the old school “stock lever” is in full effect and this morning is one of them. It’s been particularly noticeable since the 9:30am NYSE open as a recovery in stocks is apparently sapping the safe haven demand for Treasuries seen earlier in the week.  Afternoon volatility potential is focused on the 2pm ET release of the Fed Minutes.

A “spike in unusual traffic” caused service degradation for the infrastructure giant, disrupting digital banking for customers.