The past 24 hours have seen multiple news stories with seemingly contradictory updates regarding the state of the Iran war. There’s a ceasefire. There’s no ceasefire. There’s negotiation. There’s no negotiation, etc. As far as the rate market is concerned, the most important development has been the general appearance of a shift toward diplomacy and resolution on the U.S. side. This has been enough for oil prices to preserve a majority of the drop seen at the start of the week.  Bond yields (which correlate with mortgage rates) have been doing even better than oil prices today. The net effect is the lowest average mortgage rates since last Thursday. Notably, these rates are still sharply higher than February’s and, apart from the past few days, the highest since early September, 2025. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

There have been various comments from U.S. officials about ending the war for several weeks (i.e. on March 9th, Trump said the war could be over soon). Yesterday’s developments (Trump comments on the war being “won” and the 30-day ceasefire news from Israel) are being taken more seriously by markets or at least seriously enough to get trading levels back to where they were after Monday morning’s ceasefire/talks news. Oddly enough, oil prices and bond yields are holding onto the gains despite Iran refuting negotiation claims and launching another wave of air strikes.

More than 42,000, or 13.7%, of home-sale agreements in the United States fell through in February, according to a new Redfin report.

The Long Island-based lender is one of five nonbanks since January to have disclosed a prior hack, with the extent of those incidents remaining unknown.

The long-defunct Nationwide Biweekly Administration, accused in 2015 of deceptive marketing, has been ordered to pay a $7.93 million civil money penalty.

Most of the loans, 57.34%, are for cashout purposes and the entire loan pool are first-liens, and are of modest leverage, with an original cumulative loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 69.74%.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley repeated his long-standing criticism of Fair Isaac Corp. in a letter noting the detrimental impact of its prices on home buyers.

March 2026 continues to be an unpleasant month for mortgage rates–a fact almost exclusively due to the Iran war. Even if the war were to end today, there’s been sufficient disruption to infrastructure and a big enough initial spike in energy prices to create what economists refer to as “second round effects.” In simpler terms, this means that inflation expectations and interest rates will not immediately return to February’s levels simply because the war is over. That’s a premature conversation today when headlines regarding U.S. troop deployment caused rates to jump at 1pm ET. Many mortgage lenders repriced to higher levels after that with the average top tier 30yr fixed rate hitting 6.55% for the first time since August 2025.  Subsequent comments regarding de-escalation helped the bond market recover some of those initial losses, but the market would like to see a more ironclad announcement before reacting in a more meaningful way. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Juxtaposition of Escalation and De-escalation Keeping Bonds Volatile

Tuesday was notable for financial markets’ attempts to trade the Iran war due to the conspicuous juxtaposition of newswires that spoke to opposing developments. Around 1pm ET, troop deployment news sent yields to the highs of the day. A little over an hour later, the newswires gave the impression that the war was almost over–so much so that bonds were willing to retrace most of the 1pm losses. Nonetheless, yields were already elevated by 1pm, which means it was a weaker trading session overall. Material developments in the war will continue to be more actionable for markets than scheduled economic data–especially this week. 

Econ Data / Events

Labor Costs

4.4 vs 3.5 f’cast, -1.9 prev

Market Movement Recap

08:51 AM Losing ground in choppy trading as oil rebounds. MBS down a quarter point and 10yr up 4.2bps at 4.389

09:54 AM weakest levels. MBS down 11 ticks (.34) and 10yr up 6.2bps at 4.409

12:30 PM Off lows, but choppy.  MBS down 5 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 2.6bps at 4.373

01:03 PM Bumpy 2 year Treasury auction causing weakness.  MBS down 3/8ths again and 10yr up 7.2bps at 4.42

03:33 PM recovering a bit after “war over soon” headlines. MBS still down 6 ticks (.19) and 10yr up 3.8bps at 4.385

Even though there were doubts about their scope and impact, yesterday morning’s headlines introduced the prospect of some sort of ceasefire in the Iran war. Markets traded accordingly, including the “doubts” part (i.e. there was an initial rebound yesterday and an additional rebound this morning). 10yr yields have now fully erased yesterday morning’s gains even though oil prices remain quite a bit lower.