August 18th, 2017 10:26 AM by Narbik Karamian
Mortgage rates fell yesterday in response to a tweet about president Trump disbanding his councils of CEOs. Twitter was in play again yesterday. This time around it was Gary Cohn, Trump's economic advisor. Rather, it was rumors of Cohn's departure that sent financial markets into a tail-spin. Terror attacks in Spain may have played a supporting role. The net effect was heavy losses for stocks and solid gains for bonds. Markets opened down this morning as well. When bonds improve, rates fall. The 10-Year Treasury Yield which is an important gauge for mortgage rates dropped this morning to 2.19%. This is only the second time since the elections we have experienced the 10-year Treasury bond drop below 2.2%. It also happened in June, 2017. It reached as high as 2.6% in mid-March 2017.