Mortgage Rate Rockets Up To 8%

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rocketed up to 8.00% today. It is up from 7.57% on October 12 (chart). That's the highest it has been since most of the 1990s. The 10-year US Treasury bond yield rose to 4.91% today. That along with the unnerving crisis in the Middle East unnerved the stock market today.

Mortgage applications to purchase new and existing homes is now down to the lowest reading since the mid-1990s (chart). That suggests that sales of such homes will continue to decline in coming months after a very brief upturn during the summer when the mortgage rate stabilized around 7.00%.