Bonds give back some of Wednesday's gains on jobs report morning — UMBS 5.0 off 15 ticks from close, 10yr Treasury yields edge back above 4.38% as markets digest April payrolls
The 30-year conventional mortgage rate opens May at 6.45%, unchanged from Wednesday's close but under mild pressure this morning. UMBS 5.0 is at 98.60, down 15 ticks from Wednesday's strong close of 98.75. The 10-year Treasury yield has ticked back up to 4.378%, reversing roughly 7 basis points of Wednesday's decline. The bond market is in an orderly consolidation — not a reversal, but a pause in the rally that carried rates down from last week's highs.
Today is the first Friday of May, which means the April jobs report landed at 8:30 AM Eastern. Payrolls data carries more weight than almost any other monthly release for mortgage rates, because it sets the Fed's baseline for what comes next. Wednesday's rally was explicitly a positioning trade — month-end duration buying and falling oil prices — and the bond market is now in the more measured territory that follows data releases. The mild pullback in UMBS this morning is consistent with a report that didn't give bond buyers an easy narrative to push rates lower. The 10-year holding below 4.40% is a reasonable floor given recent volatility.
For borrowers, 6.45% is effectively where rates have been anchored all week. The window that opened after last week's selloff is still open — the mid-to-upper 6% range is where most new locks are landing, and there is no rate urgency on either side this morning. Borrowers floating should be aware that the afternoon session could drift in either direction depending on how the market finishes digesting the payrolls data. Locks in place should stay put. Anyone close to a decision who has been waiting for the right entry point: today's number is competitive relative to where rates were in Q4 2024 and early 2025.
Friday's afternoon session will be thinner than normal — institutional desks close out positions early before the weekend. If UMBS stabilizes above 98.50, Monday opens with a neutral base. If yields push toward 4.42% on the 10-year, expect lenders to reprice slightly higher before the close.
— David Burson, NetRate Mortgage