We've Seen This Movie Before

Rates got slammed from Wednesday to Friday following the Fed meeting. As of today, we've now recovered all of the losses from the Fed meeting and beyond — today we're sitting at the best rates we've seen since July 21st, roughly 6.625-6.75%. The rally is fresh Iran peace deal chatter. Again.

If that sequence sounds familiar, it's because it is. We've watched this exact movie a handful of times over the last five months.

Late June: peace deal imminent, rates ease. Early July: deal collapses, rates spike. Mid-July: talks resume, rates ease. Late July: negotiations stall, rates spike. This week: fresh talks, rates ease again.

That asymmetry is worth understanding, because it's not random. Bond markets price risk. So rates rise on the fear and drift lower on the follow-through — and the follow-through takes weeks, not hours.

That's why the intraday moves feel so tilted. Big spikes when the news is bad. Slow improvement when the news is good. It's the market saying "prove it" every time a peace deal gets floated.

Which brings us to the actionable question: what does your buyer do with this?

Don't try to time it. That's the whole point.

Nobody knows which peace deal headline is the real one. Nobody knows which round of talks actually holds. If the deal breaks the right way, rates might ease modestly — maybe down toward 6.5%. If it falls apart again, we're likely testing 7% for the first time in over a year. Both scenarios are live. Neither is predictable from one morning's news cycle.

If your buyer is under contract and can lock at today's number, that's the play. Today's number is better than any we've seen in two weeks. Waiting on the next leg down means betting on a movie ending we've watched not end multiple times already.

Lock when you can. Don't try to time what you think is going to happen. We've seen this movie enough times to know that predicting the ending is what gets buyers hurt.