A: See Below;
The benchmark 10-year U.S. note yield rose to 2.88 percent before slipping to 2.82 percent Thursday, holding around multi-year highs. The initial move higher follows the release of strong jobless claims data.
Weekly jobless claims hit a 45-year low, totaling 221,000. They fell from 230,000 in the previous week. A rise in yields Wednesday led to the Dow's posting its biggest one-day reversal since August 2015.
Here's the real world answer, without all the gobbledygook:
People are scared. The stock market is soaring unabated yet "Main Street" still feels the same. The interest rates (right or wrong) were artificially suppressed during the Obama administration. This isn't a political forum... that is a fact. Only one time in his 8 years did the FEB raise short term interest rates by a measly 1/4 percent and the world markets acted like a ant trying to poop out a watermelon.
In November 2016, the day after Donald Trump was elected President, interest rates went up 1/2 a point. NOT the short-term interest rates between the banks but the "REAL" interest rates that affect you and me. Since then, the FED and its Chair Janel Yellen socked the world markets with no less than three (3), 1/4 point short-term increases with a fourth (4th) increase on the way! What has happened in the past 2 weeks to interest rates was merely a byproduct of three (3) FED rate increases in fifteen (15) months. The dam had burst and something had to give.
Is Trump to blame? Maybe he is and maybe he isn't. It is too soon to judge this. He is a businessman and we all knew that the 3.25% for a 30 year fixed rate loan could not be sustained. I mean what bank wants to keep lending free money? NONE.
My advice: Get off your rear ends and start buying the home you have your eye on because 4.5% might look like a gift when rates are 6.5% or higher and they ain't going to go back down...