Mortgage Rates Jump Abruptly Higher After The Fed's Rate Cut

If anyone needed any further convincing that a Fed rate cut is no guarantee of lower mortgage rates, today is a great piece of evidence.  Perhaps "great" is the wrong word.  There was nothing great about the mortgage rate movement following today's Fed rate cut. The average lender is at least 0.20% higher than earlier this morning.  Lenders are still in the process of adjusting their rate sheets, so the total damage could vary slightly by the time we're able to run the full numbers.  Either way, the top tier conventional 30yr fixed rate will easily be back over 7% for the average lender. What gives? First off, the mortgage rate spike has nothing to do with the Fed's rate cut.  That cut was only a small part of the information released by the Fed today.  It was also the most predictable part.  When something is predictable in financial markets, it can be traded, and that trading means that longer term rates (like mortgages) can move into position well in advance of Fed cuts/hikes. Moreover, mortgage rates care more about the Fed's rate cut/hike outlook than they do about one individual cut/hike.  That's where things started going wrong today.  The Fed communicates its outlook 4 times a year via the summary of economic projections and the infamous "dot plot" (a chart with each Fed member's view on the appropriate Fed Funds Rate at various points in the future).  Today's dot plot showed the median Fed member sees much higher rates by the end of next year compared to the last dot plot 3 months ago.  The following chart shows the new dots in blue and old dots in red. The year to focus on is 2025.  Note the migration upward from the low 3 to high 3 percent range.