Mortgage Rates Begin The Month With a Modest Victory

Bonds Unexpectedly Forced to Focus on War Instead of Data Just 30 minutes before the month's most important week of economic data was about to hit its stride, headlines hit the newswires regarding an imminent missile attack on Israel.  While various iterations of such headlines are unfortunately common, these examples got the market's attention, resulting in a quick "flight to safety" trade (stock prices and bond yields moved lower).  When the AM econ data came out 30 minutes later, the impact on bonds was insignificant by comparison.  The initial flight to safety was unwound in the afternoon, but bonds remained in moderately stronger terr