by Calculated Risk on 3/07/2022 09:14:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Jump Back Up to Start The Week

Mortgage rates have experienced significant volatility so far in 2022. At first, this was almost exclusively a function of the Federal Reserve or, rather, the market's reaction to changes being discussed by the Fed. It was also almost exclusively biased toward higher rates.

Since late February, Ukraine is the key consideration for financial markets. At first, this pushed rates noticeably lower, but that trend has leveled off as of last week. Now we're seeing rates move broadly sideways in the bigger picture, with extreme volatility at times. [30 year fixed 4.09%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 6:00 AM ET, NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for February.

• At 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for January from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $87.1 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $80.7 Billion in December.

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated	65.1%	---	≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)	216.2	---	≥2321
New Cases per Day3	42,204	62,266	≤5,0002
Hospitalized3	29,837	44,714	≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3	1,259	1,723	≤502
1 Minimum to achieve "herd immunity" (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts, 37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.

New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are now declining.